Alberto Ponis’ Sardinia becomes an ambient album of wind, stone and the sounds of Gallura

There is another Sardinia beyond the glamorous coastline of the Costa Smeralda, its luxury villas and the iconic architecture of figures such as Luigi Vietti, Michele Busiri Vici and Jacques Couëlle. It is the Sardinia of Alberto Ponis, the architect who, beginning in the 1960s, turned Costa Paradiso in Gallura into a manifesto for a different way of building: an architecture that does not dominate the landscape but settles into the granite outcrops, follows the direction of the wind, grows alongside the Mediterranean vegetation and reinterprets the traditional stazzo farmhouse to imagine another way of living.

Nearly two years after Ponis’ death—and following the reopening of the rural church he left unfinished—his legacy is taking on a new form: sound. Miriorama / Abitare Costa Paradiso is a vinyl publication born from the encounter between Italian DJ and producer FILOQ’s sonic research and Ponis’ architecture. Blending ambient music, field recordings and artist’s book, the project transforms the dialogue between the architect and the Gallura landscape into an immersive acoustic composition. Presented in early July during the second edition of Abitare Costa Paradiso, the record will be released in a limited edition of 100 numbered copies and distributed digitally.

Halfway between ambient music, field recording and sound art, Miriorama / Abitare Costa Paradiso is composed entirely from the sounds of Gallura and conceived as an ever-changing acoustic landscape. The project takes its name from the nineteenth-century myriorama, a visual game made up of illustrated tiles that can be endlessly rearranged to create new landscapes. FILOQ translates the same principle into sound, composing sixteen "acoustic tiles" that share a common sonic horizon and can generate an infinite number of listening experiences.

Its raw material is the very landscape that Ponis sought to preserve through his houses. “I recorded the wind rushing between the rocks and through the rugged vegetation, the movement of water shaping the coves, voices dissolving into open spaces, the buzzing of bees and the sounds of seasonal work,” explains the artist. The record also incorporates Ponis’ reflections on the relationship between drawing and music, alongside sampled recordings of renowned Tempio Pausania singer Maria Teresa Pirrigheddu and Marco Muntoni of the Gabriel Choir.

At the heart of the project lies the same idea that shaped Ponis’ architecture: rather than burdening the landscape with new permanent infrastructures, work from within what already exists, creating new relationships between people and place.

In this sense, Miriorama / Abitare Costa Paradiso may be one of the most faithful tributes to Ponis’ vision. Just as his houses frame the Sardinian landscape while allowing themselves to disappear into it, FILOQ’s record attempts to do the same through sound, transforming Gallura into a landscape to be heard before it is seen. The result offers a different image of Sardinia—far removed from overtourism—where architecture, nature and listening come together to imagine a slower, more attentive and reciprocal relationship with the territory.

Opening image: Casa Li Baietti by Alberto Ponis, during the events of Abitare Costa Paradiso. Photo by Alessandro Toscano. Courtesy of Abitare Costa Paradiso