Earth Festival

A festival dedicated to raw earth

The Earth Festival is much more than a local village fair: it is the leading Italian event dedicated to raw earth architecture and healthy building. It takes place every year in Casalincontrada, a hillside village in the Pescara Valley in the province of Chieti, the heart of that landscape of earth houses that characterizes the hills between the Pescara valley and the first foothills of the Maiella mountains.

Organized by the Associazione Terrae ODV together with CeDTerra (Permanent Documentation Center on earth houses, recognized as a regional museum), the festival was born in 1996 to promote and protect an ancient construction heritage: massone dwellings, made with a mixture of clay, straw, and water, which have dotted the Abruzzo countryside for centuries.

Seven days of knowledge and practice

For a full week, the village becomes an open-air laboratory. The program alternates between in-depth study and hands-on activities:

• Seminars and conferences with architects, restorers, university researchers, and scholars of building with natural materials (clay, lime, hemp);
• Practical workshops on raw earth construction, open to artisans, students, and the curious;
• Photography exhibition "The Earth Houses - Landscape of Architecture", linked to the photography competition of the same name, now in its twentieth year;
• Guided tours of the CeDTerra at Villa De Lollis, the specialized library, and local earth architecture sites;
• Video screenings, concerts, and musical moments, such as the evocative "Dawn Concert" and evenings of traditional Abruzzo dances in Piazza De Lollis.

The theme of healthy living

Recent editions have revolved around the theme "Healthy Living - Healthy Housing": raw earth is seen not only as a memory of the past but as a contemporary response to the challenges of green building, energy saving, and sustainability. The event puts Mediterranean construction tradition in dialogue with international experiences, including earth construction techniques from the African continent.

The Earth Festival often closes with convivial moments linked to rural culture, such as the Grape Pressing Festival, which brings the public back to the village's agricultural roots. An event that in Casalincontrada, Abruzzo, combines culture, environment, and community in a formula that remains unique on the national scene.