SISTEMAZIONE IN SITU O MUSEALIZZAZIONE DEI FRAMMENTI ARCHITETTONICI: PROBLEMI DI CONSERVAZIONE DOPO IL TERREMOTO DI MESSINA DEL 1908

Antonella Cangelosi1, Carmen Genovese2

1 Dipartimento d’Architettura, Università di Palermo Corso Vittorio Emanuele 188, Palermo

antonella.cangelosi@unipa.it

2 Direzione Regionale per i beni culturali e paesaggistici della Calabria Via Scylletion 1, Catanzaro

mariacarmen.genovese@beniculturali.it

ABSTRACT

After the big earthquake of Messina in 1908, a lot of important fragments of the ancient city, coming from destroyed palaces and churches, were transported in a open space near the ancient church of SS. Salvatore, where in an old silk factory was born the Actual Regional Museum of Messina.

The arrangement of those elements - as marble sculptures, big fragments of architectural decorations, stone portals - was long debated and different architects, art historians and archaeologists produced ideas and projects about the construction of a new museum and the arrangement in open space of many fragments, so important to maintaining the memory of the ancient city of Messina, destroyed by the earthquake. Among the important architects who created projects about the new museum of Messina, we can remember Valenti, Accascina, Calandra, Scarpa and Minissi.

Today, the new museum is opening but only few architectural fragments were arranged, in part in interior and in part in open air; most of them are stored and after a century are in bad conditions, because of the rain, the pollution and the wind.

Comparing ancient photos and documents with the current conditions of conservation in some particular fragments - some of them rebuilded on a structure of reinforced concrete -  we make observations about the link between the exposition in open air of stone sculptures and decorations, initially placed in interior spaces, and the signs of degradation; those aspects are in common with the archaeological restoration and, in general, with other countries recently destroyed by earthquakes.

Key-words: earthquake, Messina, architectural fragments, degradation