Governance of the news urban landscapes

Ref.: 140
Key theme: 02 Functional integrity of historic urban landscapes
Date of reception: 16/11/2008

AUTHORS (*Main author)

DE MASI, Alessandro * (Italy) - University of Naples Federico II

ABSTRACT

The articulation of the "Historic Urban and Rural Landscapes" as well as of the environmental mosaic of the Italian territory, which accounts for 25% of the world heritage depends on the way of developing the economic condition and on the methods of investigation on the places that have archaeological and historical Landscape Heritage being important for present and future generations. Hence the need to investigate the area in a targeted way to highlight the relationship between sites and production, urban infrastructure and physiographic systems of "Territorial Areas (macro-areas)" which are very useful to investigate in them smaller "territorial districts" allowing to define Landscape Areas with one or more Landscape Units. That to protect agriculture as a primary economic and cultural element of the community interacting with the urban landscape and the landscape vision.
The aim of the research work, therefore, lies in the knowledge of the "sensitivity levels" with which the production, cultural and infrastructure systems, - existing within Districts or Multi-district Areas - interact both among themselves and with the neighbouring territory to verify or to promote a steady relationship with the modern town planning (infrastructure and housing planning) and compare it with the historical, landscape and archaeological culture of the sites.
The methodological approach comes from the studies carried out by the author for the publication of Architettura Rurale tra Villa Literno e Carinola (Ce) ­ Florence 2006, for the research Le trasformazioni dell'Ambiente Casertano dopo i Borbone and for the 1st Report of the International Team Research, established by UNESCO World Heritage Centre, "Rural Vernacular Heritage"- 2007-2011 "Campania Felix (Italy), Cultural Landscape and rural environments governance" (October 2008).
The study environment being taken into account, developed on an area joining, 15 Municipalities of the High area of Caserta (organized as early as 350 b.C. in Ager and centuries ­ cardines and decumans ­ with commercial centres pagus, vici and terma), the slopes of the mountains: Massico, Santa Croce, Maggiore, Tifatini (beyond Volturno River) with the hill of San Sivestro in line with the Park, the Royal Palace and the city of Caserta. (Figure 1)
The territory was investigated by identifying "characterizing aggregation systems" and their exchanges with nature and the anthropic reality within of the rural macro-area for the Province of Caserta.
The main systems (urban, naturalistic, rural-manufacturing, rural- cultural and landscape-environmental-cultural) are related to rurality, natural resources and agroforestry, physiography of places and biodiversity. These systems coexist with a strong and meaningful presence of historical-artistic and landscape assets, in close contact with nature and with the system of inland waters.
The rivers and the physiography of the plain and hilly territories, along with the historical infrastructure, the Great Farms (built on the Pagus and/or Vici) and the Farmhouses (hamlets composed of ten living units) gave rise to local ecosystems called since antiquity ager Falernus, ager Calenus, ager Campanus e ager Statanus. (Figure 2)
The attracting elements (economical-social) are present on the meeting nodes between cardines and decumans of the territorial grids of urban planning roman (pagus, vici, terma and villae rusticae) and favour the cultural, productive and infrastructural exchange between environment and society of individuals. The attractors, when present, characterize a territorial environment and, according their importance, confer a district dimension of the same environment.
The need to promote the creation of districts represents also an effective reply to the progressive impoverishment of the biodiversity and, consequently to the landscape degradation, strengthening the biopermeability of the interested areas (connectivity and porosity) and the functions of ecological connection among mainly rural areas. On the other hand, the districts, while connecting the local diversities, as well as their specific competences, propose assemblies of different and significant historical cultures for the process of political and economic development.
The "fragmentation" phenomena found in the investigated areas constitute one of the main factors of degradation, not only of the ecological landscape, but also of the visual landscape which in such a way looses its character of readability and recognizability, above all within the so-called cultural landscapes, product of a secular relationship between human activities and nature.
Therefore, the study aims at starting the requalification process of the anthropic environment by analysing the problems arising from the strategic vision of the Trans-European Corridor 1 (tourism and cultural) Berlin ­ Naples ­ Palermo, and of Corridor 8, being transverse to the previous one (along the Volturno river), coming from the Tirreno Sea towards Bari, Varna and the countries of the Balkans and, finally, of the Ionic Corridor directed toward the Mediterranean Sea. From this point view, the Caserta territory which is strongly interconnected with the Mediterranean reality, comes as an hinge area with Europe.

Fig. 1 ­ the Organization of the territory in roman age (Architettura Rurale tra Villa Literno e Carinola ­ Alinea Florence 2006)

Fig.2 -From left, the Great farmhouses Angiolillo, the Casoni Saraceni ­ Caserta, Italy ((Architettura Rurale tra Villa Literno e Carinola ­ Alinea Florence 2006)

REFERENCES

De Masi, A. 1° Report of Team International Research - UNESCO World Heritage Centre, "Rural Vernacular Heritage" 2007-2011": Campania Felix (Italy), Cultural Landscape and rural environments governance (October 2008)
For edited symposia
De Masi, A., 2008. Campania (Italy) Cultural Landscape and Rural Environment governance. (vol.2). In HERITAGE 2008 Proceedings of 1° International Conference World Heritage and Sustainable Development, 7- 9 May Vila Nova de Foz Còa (Portugal)
De Masi, A., 2008. Patrimonio Arquitectonico Rural, in Proceedings of 4th European Symposium on Research in Architecture and Urban Design EURAU'08 "Paisaje Cultural"- Madrid 16 - 19 January 2008. Madrid (Spain): Ministerio de Fomento, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
De Masi, A. & De Masi, P., 2007 Outcome of the Representation of Architecture: Image and Memory, in Proceedings of 21ST ICOMOS ­ CIPA International Symposium "Anticipating the future of the cultural past" - Athens 1- 6 October 2007. Athens (Greece): National Techinical University of Athens
For a Books
De Masi, A., 2006. Architettura Rurale tra Villa Literno e Carinola (Ce). Florence (Italy), Alinea Editrice