Reuse of the richly significant buildings: disused churches

The paper deals with the problem of the re-use of churches that have lost their main function: the religious cult. A religious building cannot be the object of an indiscriminate adaptive re-use, disregarding the historical-material stratification, capitalizing on its location, often central in a town, and using it only as a container. The re-use of a church must not become a mere exploitation, but the opportunity to revalorize it, giving a new life that preserves its social role, without masking its historical value and original function. Two Italian examples are presented here, among the many examples that could be listed: the first case is a correct conservative restoration with a re-use project that was able to safeguard the cultural value and the historical-material testimony. The second case urgently requires a suitable project to guarantee a new social life, before neglect and the passage of time extinguish this hope. The two examples are presented as an opportunity to invest in durable existing structures, conveying not only something tangible, but also of cultural significance, rich in history and local tradition: a genius loci that should not be ne- glected, because once lost it is not possible to recover