ENHANCEMENT OF PUBLIC REAL ESTATE: ITALIAN PENITENTIARY BUILDINGS

The purpose of this paper is to consider the possibility of the adaptive reuse of former Italian penitentiary buildings as tourist accommodation. This paper is a practitioner viewpoint paper, therefore it is not based on any particular methodological approach. It describes the project launched by the Agenzia del Demanio of Italy (State Property Agency) for the transformation and redevelopment of public real estate; it analyzes some international and domestic cases of former prisons' being changed over to tourist accommodation facilities. The paper identifies three methods for adapting former penitentiaries to tourist purposes: Italy has been characterized mostly by the recovery of the islands hosting abandoned prisons as preserved natural areas, while less frequent is the changeover of former penitentiaries located in urban areas, or in historical and cultural sites. The paper seeks to highlight some possibilities of adaptive reuse of former prisons, which seem not to have been fully exploited in Italy. The project by Agenzia del Demanio might be the appropriate tool to this aim, especially if more specifically focused.