Abstract
Throughout the Covid-19 emergency phase in Italy, interesting practices of reuse of architectural heritage were fostered by the community impulse in small, depopulated towns in inner areas. This unprecedented situation led small communities of remote areas to find urgent solutions to entirely new problems. Some contexts activated initiatives for enhancing the health and social services, some others for strengthening the home care, others for readjusting existing spaces according to new needs. Through the case of the reuse of the Convento dei Padri Riformati into a hospital in Madonie and other similar initiatives promoted in other Italian inner areas, this contribution aims at highlighting the potentialities connected to the creation of services for the community by reusing the existing built heritage. In the experiences this contribution wants to illustrate, the role of “local community” was revealed to be essential during the pandemic since every practice of reuse is conceived, realized, or managed through the participation of the community and mainly destined to it. Concurrently, the objective is to introduce some reflections on the importance of the functions and uses introduced and their impacts on the territory: many times, the architectural heritage is intended for tourism-related facilities. However, in some cases, other functions connected to public services can profitably preserve and relaunch historical buildings, thanks to constant use and maintenance, assuring at the same time a broader involvement of the community at all levels.
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Notes
- 1.
From the presentation of G. Carrosio, “Cittadinanza e aree interne in Italia” at the conference “Un’agenda di ricerca per le fragilità territoriali”, DAStU Dipartimento d’eccellenza Fragilità territoriali, Politecnico di Milano, March 26th, 2019.
- 2.
The Inner Area “Madonie”, one of the pilot-areas selected within the Italian National Strategy for Inner Areas, is one of the case studies that the author is investigating in the framework of her PhD thesis - developed in the PhD program in Preservation of the Architectural Heritage at Politecnico di Milano, Department of Excellence on Territorial Fragilities. The thesis is mapping and studying practices of reuse of built heritage in wider local development initiatives in Italian inner areas.
- 3.
Part of the information reported were collected thanks to the kind availability of Alessandro Ficile, president of the local development agency of Madonie and the major or Petralia Sottana, Leonardo Neglia.
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Valiante, C., Oteri, A.M. (2022). Communities’ Involvement for the Reuse of Historical Buildings. Experiences in Italian Marginal Areas. In: Calabrò, F., Della Spina, L., Piñeira Mantiñán, M.J. (eds) New Metropolitan Perspectives. NMP 2022. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 482. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06825-6_2
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