Bringing the sun to Viganella, an Italian village condemned to darkness

In Italy, enclosed in the Antrona valley, there is a small village that in recent years has aroused the curiosity of many due to an innovative project that has taken place there. Thanks to a technical development, the village of Viganella no longer spends many months of the year in in the dark.

Every year, from mid-November until the first days of February, the small village finds itself completely without sun, surrounded by darkness: a rather uncomfortable situation for its 204 inhabitants.

To solve this problem, a lot of creativity was needed to come up with a solution that is truly out of the ordinary.

To be precise, on 17 December 2006, the inhabitants of Viganella, together with the then-mayor Franco Midali (pictured) and the architect Giacomo Bonzani, installed a huge mirror on one of the peaks overlooking the town.

The idea was to use it to reflect the sunlight directing it towards the village square, gaining a few hours of direct light during the dark 83 days of winter.

Photo: Wikipedia, Viganella square

The project to build the giant mirror was born in 1999. Its dimensions are truly remarkable: eight meters wide (26 feet) by five meters high (16 feet) which reflect the sun for approximately 6 hours a day.

Additionally, the enormous mirror is equipped with software that allows it to spin to follow the movement of the sun during daylight hours.

This creative technology is only activated during the period of darkness. The mirror is then covered from February until November 11th, the day the sun's rays stop reaching the village.

Thanks to the giant mirror, the inhabitants of Viganella no longer have to turn the lights on in their homes during the day during the coldest and darkest months of the year and thus enjoy a few hours of natural light.

The artificial sun of Viganella is today seen as a mixture of advanced technology and a modern work of art and certainly constitutes a new urban planning concept capable of giving concrete and practical answers to real daily needs.