Abandoned villages, from conservation to revitalization

The abandonment suffered by many minor historical centres, whether they are the result of a spontaneous transfer or of a forced evacuation following a calamitous event, is an opportunity to reflect on the meaning and the reasons for the restoration of the neglected villages. Their slow and progressive disappearance requires urgent conservation and proposals to assign a new role and meaning, without excluding “a priori” a possible conversion into places of contemplation and sedimentation of the collective memory. Studying ancient villages means increasing interest and promoting the operational competences related to the preservation of historic buildings, the typological, formal and constructive values, which are the signs of identity of an urban organism to which is recognized the value of unrepeatable individuality, an organism, therefore, to be protected in view of its transmission to future generations. The study of the abandoned village of Craco (MT), beginning from the most representative buildings, is the first step along the road of developing a research project for the conservation and enhancement of the urban organism that, in accordance with the character of places, cannot ignore the critical geological conditions and the making safe problem. The partially collapsed buildings facilitate the anatomical study of building sections and materials, promoting constructive understanding of architectural organisms at risk of slow, but sure disappearance. Only the intimate knowledge of the buildings in their constructive anatomy, the awareness of their real state of preservation, the identification of their functional vocations can direct (through protective measures, instructions, regulations, constraints) the restoration project based, hopefully, on the criteria of minimum intervention, compatibility, recognizability.