L'Aquila: from old to new castles. Rediscovering relationship poles and networks to rebuild a community

The 2009 earthquake, which devastated L’Aquila and its surrounding towns and hamlets, dramatically interrupted continuity of use. It affected the deep relationship between the city and its territory, as well as between the city and its inhabitants, many of whom moved to so-called new towns – new ‘castles’ devoid of services and spaces for socialising. Today the city of L'Aquila is gradually reclaiming its poles of aggregation, not just through the reconstruction of buildings and public spaces, but also by giving them new identities as cultural, administrative, scientific, religious and recreational centres. This is happening through programmatic strategies, and also through spontaneous processes that revive and recompose both the material and immaterial, along with individual and social senses of the city community. In contrast to this are the difficult and sporadic reconstruction operations in the smaller centres of the territory. Where the stabilità temporanea (temporary stability) of the new towns lacks services and spaces for social interaction, the initiatives of local associations and inhabitants have provided an intangible thread that attempts to resew micro-communities, reappropriating historical spaces and creating new social focuses, such as the House of Culture in Onna.