Features of small historic centers. Conservation and new functions

We should ask ourselves if the abandonment of a historic center is a reversible condition or not. In the town of Castel Vecchio Calvisio, recently abandoned, one might think of how to recreate a population numerically similar to the previous one; but the social and economic structure of the past has been definitively lost and therefore irrecoverable even in the assumption of reviving the existing functions. More or less deep changes with the uses of the buildings are consubstantial with the history of much of the built environment, sometimes without going through striking events. These are changes that resulted also in significant transformations of the material consistency of the architectural artifacts. Castel Vecchio Calvisio is no exception to these outcomes. With the loss of its defensive function, the town fortified system became an abandoned infrastructure which offered new possibilities of intervention, which are reflected not only in the individual artifacts but also in the urban setting. Thus the defensive towers were unified with the domestic dwellings and were therefore equipped with windows and doors in the outer side of the city. It is also likely that the perimeter wall of the town originally formed a barrier without, at the lower levels, the openings that exist today. On the other hand the main entrance to the city, the town gate, is garrisoned by a fortified structure that would be meaningless if the current multiple possibilities of side access, through secondary roads of the fusiform plan, had always existed. Rethinking the future based on the understanding of the past is the task that a city like Castel Vecchio Calvisius put us in front of. It is a stimulating challenge that one can only tackle through a detailed study that is able to capture the specificities of each site, the concrete architectural character and the peculiarities of urban organisation.