IL VALORE DEL RIUSO DELLE ANTICHE STRUTTURE CARCERARIE: IL CARCERE AUSTRIACO DI BUSTO ARSIZIO (VA)

Among the most complicated buildings to restore, prisons play a key role. If some international historically famous prisons are excluded, the topic of their restoration is rather recent. In some cases there is the will to cancel the strong impact of these buildings and, in other cases, it is less expensive demolishing them instead of reusing them, also because often too small and not easily modifiable. And this is the case of buildings born with this function, compared to older buildings built with a previous function, like historic disused monasteries. The paper presents the case of Busto Arsizio (VA), Italy, where a small compact beautiful prison realized in half XIX century, was disused in the 80’s of the XX century. The building was never reused and still presents the original shape, the cells, the massive structures and the façade in rather good conditions. The chance to reuse it is now favorable, because the municipality recently discovered the value of this construction, maybe also thanks to a teaching experience with foreign students, that proposed different new ideas of the building reuse, always highlighting both the value of the original construction and of preserving the human proofs of the prisoners.