VALORIZATION AND PRESERVATION FOR CITADEL OF MESSINA. STUDIES FOR A SUSTAINABLE RECOVERY

Many monuments, memories of a past rich in history and culture, over the years have suffered important alterations caused by man’s necessities and accidental events. In the optics of the maintenance, it is important to safeguard the essence of such monuments to preserve the historical memory and the identity of them and to strengthen their role as a resource. The choices of intervention have therefore to be founded on a plurality of analysis and factors, on both traditional and innovative operational procedures, involving numerous disciplines and competences; they have to be preceded by an accurate phase of knowledge, constituted by analyses that investigate the characteristics of the buildings and of the context. If then the knowledge framework enriches of further data related to brutal transformations, a special care must be kept while organizing the information system to exactly frame the found problems. This is the case of the Citadel in Messina, imposing eighteenth-century fortification, designed by Carlos de Grunembergh and built by the Spanish to control popular rebellions. After resisting to the time, today it is neglected and, till some years ago, used as refuse disposal site, loosing the monumental and functional characters for which it had been built. The study aims to propose an examination of the monument, analyzing morphological, historical, technological information, in relationship to the transformations, the changes of use destination and the damages caused by them. In summary the study applies analytical criterions to the information acquired to verify, to the goals of the intervention, the possibilities of reuse of the monument.