Re-inhabiting abandoned cities. The case study of Anavatos

This essay deals with the issue of the reinterpretation and renovation of the urban form of abandoned ruined settlements, endowed with architectural and landscape qualities, in view of their possible reuse simultaneously aimed at their protection and valorization. The reasoning is conducted from a point of view that considers the question of reuse as an extraordinary opportunity of “re-foundation” and reconfiguration of the form of city, according to its morphological and spatial structure, rather than only as a matter of methods and techniques of restoration and adaptation of its buildings and spaces to the new inhabiting needs as well as to new possible uses. The case study of the abandoned Greek-Turkish village of Anavatos is paradigmatic for the virtuality of its “unfinished” form - typical of the ruin-, available to be completed and re-interpreted, and for the potentialities linked to the extraordinary beauty of its territory, characterized and qualified by its suggestive presence. According to a morphological rather than historical interpretation of the urban structure of the settlement, the essay proposes a design approach aimed to renew its form and make its identity more intelligible in relation to its constitutive characters and to the idea of city that it suggests.