ABSTRACT

Protection and a new compatible and sustainable use of a heritage as extensive as that produced in the postwar period, especially of those buildings produced by the techniques of prefabrication and industrialization of the construction process, necessitate the definition of new approaches to deal with the issue. The architectural and structural specifics of this heritage, characterized by modularity and seriality, have demonstrated its fragility as time passes, but above all new strategies have to be developed to protect its values and meanings. In Italy the “orthodox” instruments contained in the existing legislation protecting the historical-artistic patrimony are inadequate, but above inapplicable to the new factors that emerged during the period of post war reconstruction. The risk of exclusively utilitarian alterations to these buildings, dictated by a purely economic and financial logic, which now appears pervasive and unstoppable, would lead in a relatively short time to the obliteration of a significant phase of the history of the transformation of our cities and territory. The aim of this paper is to reflect on “heterodox” forms of control and guidance to be given to public initiative, but with different instruments from those provided by the Codice dei beni culturali e del paesaggio (“Code of Cultural Assets and the Landscape”), which is unbalanced towards rigid control and compliance and inapplicable in practice to the urban scale.

Parole chiave/Key-words: XXth Century Cultural Heritage, Prefabrication, Protection , Preservation, Reuse