Il mal sottile e l’architettura sanatoriale in Abruzzo - The White Plague and sanatorium architecture in the Abruzzo region

The tuberculosis, also known as "White Plague", transformed in the XIX century from an epidemic phenomenon into a modern social disease thanks to the demographic and urban expansion. The European positivist culture pursued full awareness and mature reflections about living conditions and progressively focused on healthcare after the widespread belief that health is a right for all people. New studies about the equipment of health facilities were carried out with the fruitful collaboration between doctors and designers who introduced new spatial and technological solutions addressed to assist specific pathologies, such as tubercolosis. In Italy the research about the sanatorium building started in the first years of XX century with the competion launched by the National Congress of Tisiology and the two national building plans, in 1916 and 1927, led to the construction of these specialised hospitals which represented the results of an economic, typological and formal development. After the spread of the first medicines for tubercolosis between 1950s and 1970s, sanatorium buildings were partially used as health facilities, but were often subject to abandoment due to the widespread judgement that they are functionally inadequate and difficult to recover. The sanatorium buildings located in the Abruzzo region, in particular in Giulianova, Teramo and Chieti, are the outcomes of the plans of the first half of XX century, they show meaningful traces of the typological and building research of that period, but they are also affected by critical issues about their reuse. This essay, through the history of the national and regional development of sanatorium buildings, aims to define general guidelines that could be useful to foster a regenerative and resilient recover project.