PATRIMONIO CULTURALE E MARGINALITÀ. LA PANDEMIA DELLA SOLITUDINE. QUALE RIGENERAZIONE?

We start from the assumption that culture is what man assimilates, modifies and transforms, to which he contributes with his work, adding to and preserving the historical heritage. The sum of heritage diversities and values gives cultural uniqueness to the coexistence of the communities that make up each territory. Our main task, the task of each one of us who with an educated eye understands the meaning and value of heritage, must be directed towards committing ourselves not only to be actors in the present historical moment in which such testimonies survive, but to be authors of practices of preservation and enhancement. We cannot learn culture just by looking at its symbols, but by living the reality to which they refer, harmonising it with the environment and with the people who act in relation to the environment. If the environment suffers from neglect, culture becomes marginalised. And this is what we are experiencing today - the “marginalisation of culture”, and not just academic culture! In a society, in a city, every element intervenes not only for its tangible physical characteristics, but also for the intangible that suggests gestures, behaviours, ways of living. Faced with these marginalised realities, our role as architects and mediators assumes the need to define a diversified network of tools to protect and manage them and the places where they live. These marginalised places are themselves a heritage to be recovered and/or redeveloped. The role of the heritage scholar is also that of a disseminator of the value of heritage and a facilitator of recovery processes by collaborating with the resident community in the maintenance of all that they themselves consider valuable and representative of their culture and traditions. To this end, it is necessary to generously establish modes of cooperation, i.e. to initiate development projects for heritage, even marginal ones, by relating to the community present in it. This means involving today’s citizens in the construction of their own history and thus sometimes in the reconstruction of their marginalised identity.