Disaster Branding: The Diversionary Role of (St)architects in the Aftermath of Italian Disasters

Abstract This article discusses the emerging practice of disaster branding, herein intended as a specific form of place branding associated with post-disaster reconstruction. Adopting Italy as a reference context, the article discusses renowned architects’ role in promoting a neoliberal and consumerist gaze on the affected places and steering public attention from post-disaster reconstruction shortcomings. To this aim, the article combines place branding theory and disaster critical theory as a theoretical base. Examining starchitects’ project descriptions in Italian post-disaster contexts, the article adopts critical discourse analysis to investigate the phenomenon over the last 15 years. Results show that some disaster and place branding keywords, like rebirth, identity, authenticity, effectiveness, and safety, are frequently adopted in the analyzed case studies, suggesting the emergence of a neoliberal “selling place” approach in post-disaster recovery. Furthermore, in the recent Italian post-disaster context, disaster branding appears to be a strategy serving the public institutional response to the emergency, showcasing efficiency and shadowing the fallacies of the reconstruction. In light of these initial findings, the article proposes disaster branding as a novel lens to explore place branding and built environment transformations in neoliberal post-disaster recovery.