Enhancement of Architectural Heritage as an Opportunity for Historical and Construction Research. The Representation Museum (MuRa) at Villa Zingali Tetto

The regulatory landscape dealing with cultural heritage enhancement requires a holistic and multidisciplinary approach that foregrounds the recognition of cultural value as the prerequisite and purpose of its preservation and proper communication. The ‘Historic House museums’ in particular, are buildings that carry singular cultural values for the community; in these cases, the ‘content’ (what is exhibited) and ‘container’ (the building) become inseparable. Beyond museum collections, even the building corpus must first be known to be dematerialised and then incorporated into scientifically accurate storytelling. Therefore, the preliminary study step of the enhancement design must be conducted in a balance between Humanities and Physical/Engineering Sciences. The paper aims to report the application of these theoretical principles in the case study of Villa Zingali Tetto in Catania, a fine Deco example of a private residence. The building, designed in 1926 by Paolo Lanzerotti (a refined architect from Catania, 1875–1944), is now the seat of the Museum of Representation (MuRa) of the Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture (University of Catania). In order to analyse the architecture of the Villa (a synthesis of innovation and tradition), historical, technical and construction investigations and direct and instrumental surveys were carried out. The authors have obtained results that offer the opportunity to create a new narrative of the ‘container Villa Zingali Tetto’, between interdisciplinary teaching and research activities. In this way, the visitor experience is enriched with information on early twentieth-century techniques and materials combined with the traditional building systems typical of local Etna architecture.