where allegorical floats are designed and built

The hangars of the papier-mâché giants are nothing more than the creative workshops in which the mammoth works are made that then parade during the Putignano carnival.

 

Three sheds, owned by the municipality, built at the beginning of the 70s which suitably divided into seven modules house the papier-mâché masters and their collaborators. 1600 square meters that seem immense empty, but which, among newspapers, glue, skeletons of welded iron pipes and clay casts, are reduced to a minimum. Thanks to soft lights and colors, colors, colors in them you can breathe the air of a centuries-old tradition.

 

The walls, over 16 meters high, are covered with sketches created by the papier-mâché masters who reproduce the floats made in previous years, to constitute a small gallery that takes up the evolutions of the themes proposed by the commission for the official competition. Immense sliding doors with vertical metal slats serve as protection and curtain during the day of the processions, when the floats are brought from the shelters in procession at the beginning of the parade route.

 

According to an urban redevelopment project, the historic "papier mache creative district" will one day be demolished and give way to a more efficient and modern structure located in another area. With a larger surface it will be able to accommodate more creatives than papier-mâché.