Territori fragili in Lombardia tra abbandono, sottoutilizzo e trasformazioni del patrimonio costruito = Fragile Areas in Lombardy among Abandonment, Underutilization and Transformation of the Built Heritage

Although Lombardy is one of the most economically dynamic regions of Europe, it also presents areas characterized by territorial periphery, hence included in the boundary of the so-called Inner Areas. The paper presented intends to analyse the effects that demographic and socio-economic dynamics have had on the settlement structures and on buildings of these territories, linked to the ongoing phenomena. After a first bibliographic overview on the historical precedents of the Inner Areas, the research focuses on three case studies, different in location, history and culture of the settlements: Alto Oltrepò pavese, Alta Val Brembana and Alto Lario Occidentale. The field research phase shows that the effects of the demographic decrease may not coincide with the total abandonment of the building. In the territory of the Oltrepò Pavese and that of the Orobie Alps the new dynamics of ownership and use, used for tourism, have induced phenomena of partial use and under-use of the buildings. The houses often appear renovated: research in the municipality archives, in fact, has confirmed that the traditional construction has been profoundly changed by modernization interventions over the last forty years. In the area of Alto Lario Occidentale, on the contrary, the weak building dynamics allowed to observe fewer transformations, sometimes invasive, but also phenomena of abandonment, degradation and collapse.