Castelluccio di Norcia is a small village in Umbria, located at 1,452 meters above sea level in the heart of the Sibillini Mountains National Park. Its plain, renowned for the blooming of lentils that every summer between June and July turns the landscape into a mosaic of colors, has always been a symbol of Italian beauty and rural tradition.
On October 30th, 2016, a 6.5 magnitude earthquake, the strongest recorded in Italy in the last forty years, struck central Italy, devastating entire areas across Marche, Umbria, Lazio and Abruzzo. Castelluccio was one of the hardest hit: more than 80% of its buildings were damaged or destroyed, forcing residents to abandon their homes.
In June 2025, nearly ten years later, reconstruction has still not been completed. Landscape restrictions, bureaucracy, and technical difficulties related to altitude and climate have heavily slowed down the process. The community has not been able to return to its original houses and has been forced to build a new daily life in emergency housing solutions.
The so-called SAE (Emergency Housing Solutions), prefabricated units originally meant to last only a few months or a couple of years, have become permanent homes for many residents. In these small spaces, often cold in winter and hot in summer, people not only live but also work: agricultural, artisanal, and tourist activities have had to adapt to this provisional condition. Next to these units, metal modules can still be found, originally intended as temporary shelters, which continue to evoke the sense of emergency and remind us how long and difficult the wait for reconstruction has been and still is.
What was supposed to be a temporary phase has turned into a permanent reality, with serious social and economic consequences. The loss of historic homes has also meant the loss of spaces for social life, identity, and collective memory.
The prefabricated structures have become concrete symbols of the hardship that residents face every day, visible signs of territorial and institutional fragility that, after almost a decade, remain unresolved. This photograph aims to document the natural beauty of the plain and, at the same time, the material reality of a village still trapped in a provisional present.
