Conservation principles and theories for Cultural Heritage in hazards zones. A case in the Earthquake area in Central Italy

The present contribution to the section ‘Strategies for Underground Built Heritage reuse and valorisation’ opens with the definition of ‘cultural heritage’ and with a focus on the history of the term in the European culture as well as with the role played by the International Charters. The pioneering experience of the British culture, due to the campaigns by William Morris that in 1877 founded the ‘Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings’ (SPAB), has evolved into the leading role of the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England (Historic England). They published the guidelines for recognition, protection and conservation of cultural heritage. An important action towards a wider awareness of the value of the heritage was in 2018, when the Council of Europe launched the campaign ‘European Heritage Days’ aimed at ‘promoting diversity and dialogue through access to heritage to foster a sense of identity, collective memory and mutual understanding within and between communities’ and Faro Convention 2005. The action following the assessment of the value of a place is its ‘conservation’, intended as the process of managing change in way that will best sustain its heritage values. To ‘sustain’ embraces both ‘preservation’ and ‘enhancement’ to the extent that the values of a place allow. Such a delicate process of understanding the limits of the changes in a significant place should be a shared responsibility of the scientific community and of the decision-makers fully involving the citizens. The concept of ‘Historic Urban Landscape’ (HUL) is central in this process. As Jukka Jokilehto wrote, HUL – which had its origin in the international conference of Vienna in 2005, calls for a systematic approach to an ‘urban area understood as the result of a historic layering of cultural and natural values and attributes’. The above concepts and strategies are the base of an ongoing experience of Università Politecnica delle Marche in the Appenine areas in Central Italy, affected by recurrent earthquakes, the last in 2016-2017. The earthquake, shaking a large area in the territories of four regions, has revealed the wickness of our heritage. The loss is not only physical but mainly human and social. The immediate question is whether such dangerous territories should be still inhabited or towns and villages moved to more safe places. The answer is evident: these places preserve an immense value for their long history. Our approach to those questions lays in the title of our research project : ‘Living with earthquakes’, an interdisciplinary research and educational programme for a larger scale strategy aimed at preventing future damages. A summer school in the Province of Fermo, south of Marches region, is the training place. The chosen area is characterized by a landscape varying its morphology from the seaside to hills and mountains, and pointed by towns and villages on the top of the hills. Each place has a unique urban pattern woven into the forms of the territory and to the colors of the geology. The notion of ‘Historic Urban Landscape’ is perfectly matching to it.