Landscape. Bottom-up approach for cultural landscape and local identity mapping

A city is the organic expression of human condition; it is the responsibility of communities, local institutions and citizens to invest resources so that this heritage could remain alive, in the everyday ways of life uses but also in memory, rituals and oral traditions, that is in the plot, sometimes hidden or elusive, which makes it become a cultural landscape. In this context, the Puglia Region promoted the Law on beauty of the Apulian territory which introduces the innovative scenario of "landscape community", in which the practical definition of what is "beautiful" comes from participatory processes and mediation with the communities. The chapter presents a collaborative design methodology to search for the "identifying references of the landscape and the belonging of the territory to the reference community and the different meanings that can emerge from the local dimension of the identity". The process maps practices, arts, episodes, stories, crafts, representations and material and immaterial expressions. The outcome is a repertoire of identity and human dimensions starting from chromatic and material expression to investigate paradigms and knowledge, to reconstruct a community handbook.