Digitally Reframing Coastal Fortifications: Enhancing Visibility and Meaning in the Mediterranean Landscape

The defensive system of the Mediterranean today appears as a scattering of sites of great historical value and natural beauty. The sight of a tower, and the view from a tower, evoke contexts with a specific charm connected to breath-taking panoramas. The identity value of defensive architectural works forms a strong design of the landscape and defines the image of places. The contemporary observer or visitor can easily overlook the reasons that led to the construction of observation and coastal defense structures—certainly not intended to offer a picturesque view, but rather to support a gaze often filled with concern about what might appear on the horizon, and consequently, how to respond to it. Moreover, recognizing individual elements as part of more complex and structured systems is, in most cases, impractical, due to the fragmentation caused by the disappearance of components or the difficulty in reading visual alignments, now polluted by later construction. The proposed contribution will try a shift in interpretation that will require alternative methods for reading the built landscape and understanding the relationships within coastal defense systems, posing a challenge to the representation of the existing and encouraging the use of digital techniques capable of simplifying the description of contexts and enhancing their readability. The use of rapid digitalization methods, such as terrestrial and aerial/UAV photogrammetry, and the construction of scenarios with varying degrees of virtual immersion connected to neogeography tools, now make it possible to facilitate the dissemination of knowledge and, above all, to strengthen the identity dignity of coastal fortification systems—moving them away from the role of mere landscape ornamentation and highlighting their true intrinsic historical and cultural function.