The Vernacular architecture in centre of Italy after the big Earthquake
AbstractIn 2016 a series of strong earthquakes hit central Italy, destroying many towns, some even completely. These towns mostly consisted of very old buildings made of local stone that crumbled under the shock. The quality of these towns was defined by the buildings in the urban space and the vernacular architecture of the individual houses. Before the earthquakes, VERNADOC Italia had studied precisely this quality with survey campaigns organized by the authors with students at the School of Architecture in Ascoli Piceno. After the terrible event and the destruction of many of these homes, the problem arose as to how to reconstruct these towns and in particular how to prevent them from becoming depopulated, since they are mostly located in the mountains in disadvantaged circumstances with respect to Italy’s larger production and economic system. The residents immediately exhibited a desire to recreate the urban spaces and houses that were present before the earthquake, reconstructing the town ‘where and how it was’ because the vernacular architecture of those places was a symbol of the places themselves. This reconstruction, however, is very difficult and economically very expensive. To support it, a real willingness to economically revive those places is needed. This is more a political and social problem than an architectural one. In Italy, however, there have been interesting examples of regenerating semiabandoned mountain towns, for example, Riace in Calabria, where the town has been reborn by integrating migrants from Africa and Asia. This essay describes the problem of reconstruction using direct evidence of these events and involving the mayors and residents of the destroyed towns. With respect to images, those made in the affected towns during the VERNADOC camps alternate with images of the destruction caused by the earthquakes to recount the serious loss of architectural and environmental quality.