Imparare dalle crisi: la lezione del Dopoguerra nella città storica contemporanea

During all historical crises, cultural heritage has demonstrated great vulnerability. The crisis of cultural values, financial breakdowns, ideological wars and natural disasters that have characterized the beginning of the XXI century, easily remind us postwar scenarios, appeared in Europe after the Second World War. Now as then, there is a significant lack of confidence in the theories of restoration, while we question about whether and how to rebuild the historical heritage irreparably compromised by earthquakes, natural disasters or, simply, human neglect. Moreover, scientific debate focuses on sustainable reuse of historical settlements and on the stratigraphic overlapping “ancient-new”. For all these reasons, we can affirm that, after seventy years, the outcomes of the post war actions are a lesson of undoubted actuality. The case-study of the city of Cagliari, heavily devastated by bombing in February 1943, emphasizes, through a thematic urban route, the incongruity produced by a spontaneous, desperate and in many ways still unresolved reconstruction.