Poggioreale: Urban Monument to Negligence. Restoration Strategies

In 1968 a violent earthquake hit the Belice valley. Some cities were razed to the ground, while others suffered serious devastation. Poggioreale was one of the municipalities most affected by the seism. At that time, the city authorities decided to leave the town and rebuild a new center a few miles away. Today the ancient Poggioreale is a ruined, harrowing, melancholic ghost town. In order to intervene on the ancient town and avoid total destruction due to negligence, the proposed project has a twofold purpose: on one hand, we intend to preserve the historical memory of the places, on the other we intend to give new life and vitality to the center. For this reason, the proposal foresees a series of interventions that guarantee an economic rebirth of the town. The planned interventions, therefore, move on three different categories of interven- tion. The first is the preservation of historical memory (through the securing of part of the ruins and the restoration of architectural emergencies). The second is the repopulation of places (through the recovery of minor buildings also through the self-construction process). The third is the reactivation of the production activity (through the start-up of production chains that use the local products of the earth).