Il censimento dei quartieri: metodologia, esiti e strumenti di tutela

This contribution addresses the selection and description of residential districts within the research project Architecture in Lombardy from 1945 to the Present. Selection of Works of Significant Historical and Artistic Interest, coordinated by the author and forming part of the national survey of post-war architecture in Italy. Out of a total of 730 surveyed works, 31 districts were selected based on criteria established at the national level (critical reception, prominence of the designers, formal quality, construction and typological innovation, and urban context). A general data sheet was developed for each district, indicating its location, authors (designers and clients), chronology, bibliographic and archival sources (with photographs and project documents attached), and summarizing the main features of each settlement in terms of morphological layout, construction techniques, and materials. The author reflects on the most appropriate tools for their protection, considering that these are large-scale architectural complexes not easily subject to conventional heritage listing. Case-by-case solutions may include landscape protection status (already applied in three of the cases described), copyright protection (when the designer is still living), and, above all, the inclusion of such districts in municipal urban planning instruments with specific regulatory provisions aimed at guiding urban regeneration in a way that is consistent with their value, projecting them into a new dimension of use and collective well-being.