La conservazione nei centri storici minori abruzzesi colpiti dal sisma del 2009: esigenze di riuso e questioni di conservazione

The earthquake in April 2009 struck, over the city of L’Aquila, a wide area, including smaller historical towns of great historic, artistic and environmental interest. The paper examines the cases of Castelvecchio Calvisio and Santo Stefano di Sessanio, analyzing their architectural and construction characteristics and the current state of degradation of materials and structures, with the aim of verifying the compatibility of requirements for reuse and for ‘reconstruction’ post earthquake with the conservative instances. At present, in fact, there is a tendency to regard ‘priority’ structural problems, but if these issues are not dealt with a conservative approach and a clear and theoretical-critical awareness, we risk irreversibly damaging a historical and architectural heritage of particular complexity and value, consisting of a intact built heritage, although damaged by the earthquake, miraculously unscathed from the speculation phenomena. In these cases, the conservation of the material authenticity is essential because it is the very value of these villages, whereas the analysis suggests that, not infrequently, the actions of ‘recovery’ may be a further insult to the conservation.