Retro-planning: a time machine for Cultural Heritage The urban gate S. Leonardo – Barletta (BAT)

The aim of this paper is to test the possibility of carrying out a back- ward design process, based on historical and iconographic data, to reconstruct an incomplete or destroyed heritage asset. By applying retro- planning, a reverse design process based on historical data, the gool is to restore the cultural asset studied to its original form, relocating it digitally, in the environment in which it stood when it was conceived by its designer. The technique was applied to the S. Leonardo gate in Barletta (BAT), which no longer exists today, but of which some artefacts are preserved. At the end of the reverse design, with digital modelling, it is possible to relocate the volumes of the architectural asset in the timeline to be passed on to future generations so that it will not be forgotten. At the basis of the process, in addition to historical and iconographic research, it is necessary to investigate the construction techniques and materials in use at the time of the architectural asset to be redesigned, which is fundamental in order to create a model of the work as close as possible to the original. As will be seen, the expanded knowledge of those approaching this reconstruction process plays an important role, which most often starts with a few photographs and historical data that are not very representative of the real architectural form. For this reason, the intuitions of the operator are important in filling in the missing elements of the reconstruction process. The procedure has as its goal the representation of the cultural asset, elaborating in the drawings of the Mongiana representation the aspects proper to architectural speech in order to construct the idea initially elaborated by the creator of the work.