The recovery of industrial archeology to rethink new urban, economic and social stratergies. Italian Projects

Is underway the process of permanent loss of abandoned factories, architectural relics that evoke the daily rhythms of a vibrant community, the sounds and colors of a work civilization inexorably lost. This is a social disruption phenomenon, even before material, which has invested many industrial settlements, with significant repercussions on whole cities and territories. The Italian territory is rich of examples of “industrial archeology”, a discipline that deals with the traces and testimonies of the industrial revolution era, in all its various declinations, and which analyzes the economic and social impacts and consequences from it. The buildings contributed to the creation of the industrial urban landscape that emerged from the 18th century and they testify the process of transforming the environment and society. The recovery of old abandoned factories (railways, industry, etc.) represents a unique opportunity for rethinking new and improved urban, social, economic and cultural strategies, according to the “Integrated Conservation". In this contribution will be analyzed many Italian projects that have courageously taken the road of wise and fruitful architectural and urban recovery.