Reuse and preservation of Industrial Archaeology in a rural landscape, Sicilian peculiarity

Industrial Archaeology (IA) is a relatively recent discipline and its goal is the preservation of the memory of ancient work activities. The need of such preservation sprang from technological evolution, so rapid nowadays, that makes production processes, tools and objects, obsolete: working devices become suddenly useless and so they are abandoned. This is also true for the buildings destined to work, such as factories, infrastructures and related areas; that is the most interesting aspect of Industrial Archaeology, because it allows the recovery of important resources. In Sicily, IA has a very particular role and meaning. In fact, although this region is very far from the heart of European, where the Industrial Revolution had the most outstanding development, there were several activities related to the place (from tuna fishing and conservation to sulphur mining, from salt production to clay processing). The companies involved were comparable with the most advanced ones of the northern regions, considering the internal organization, the quantity and the quality of the products addressed to the market, although they were characterized by relatively low levels of mechanization. Moreover, in Sicily IA has an extra-value, because a large number of these structures are located in extra-urban contexts, so as to be close to the area of origin of the raw materials. Here, the relation with the environment is stronger than in the city and the available buildings are a more appreciated resource, because of their limited number. So, their reuse, that in some cases has already begun, is a good occasion to promote the development of rural areas. The following work can be considered as belonging to the well-consolidated field of the History of Construction. The contribution to the subject consists in explaining the relation between the local characteristics and the whole framework of IA in Italy, by pointing out the aspects and the issues of the local vicissitudes, unknown even to the experts. Furthermore, attention is focused on how it is possible to encourage the development of the depressed rural areas with the reuse of the Industrial Archaeology. In fact, the action plan has some particularities due to the features of this kind of buildings. This is a very relevant theme if you consider that it is often mentioned in the business program of the regional authority.