Storicamente ABC is an open book whose pages have been distributed the length of a 300 meter tunnel for visitors to examine and to page through. The act of reading is divided into two stages: one outbound (S>N), the other inbound (N<S).

The first involves a journey through the letters of an alphabet in which major features of regional history and culture are charted, from the Trentino’s status as an Autonomous region to the disaster of Zambana and the town’s reconstruction. Each letter corresponds to a theme that is explored by means of a macrohistory which surveys the overall theme and a microhistory which explores a specific narrative thread. The inbound stage draws the visitor into a narrower, more intimate corridor in the course of whose unfolding the region’s territory is mapped by means of a sequence of personal testimonies, stories, and documentary materials.  The sequence is organized along a North to South axis, in keeping with the alignment of the tunnel. Here the abstract themes surveyed in the outbound stage assume a human face: the face of the Trentino itself, examined in all its richness and diversity.

At the center of both itineraries, the central vault of the tunnel features an installation evocative of the fierce beauty of the region’s hydroelectric power plants. The tunnel’s limits are marked by premonitions of two gardens to come, recreational and educational in character. The garden to the North will take shape as an Alpine garden; its counterpart to the South will be animated by the flora of the Veronese/Trento border.