The heritage of the Magic Mountain. The sanatorium village in Sondalo, Italy

The paper discusses how to preserve and reuse the heritage of the former sanatoriums which had been built to fight tuberculosis along the Alps since 1870 to 1940. This great building stock is now protected as historical heritage even if, after they lost the original function, there is not a clear strategy for restoring and re-using. Beside the ‘tangible’ buildings, this heritage is made also by the ‘intangible’ that is the deep experience, knowledge and culture of hospitality and care within the local communities. The sanatorium village in Sondalo (Itay) is discussed as case-study. This case is particulary relevant considering the landscape impact of such a building complex which may be considered as a new town consisting of ten huge buildings, a number of minor buildings with a total of 600.000 cubic metres, a wide park with a water main and many technical plants. Describing the ongoing restoration of the Sanatorium Village in Sondalo, the paper focuses on how a cultural project, which is mainly oriented to the protection and enhancement of built heritage, may be crucial to start the recovery of a building complex which would otherwise have remained abandoned. This experience is discussed and compared to some of the latest ones within the Alpine area (Passy, Davos). In conclusion, the paper asks how to ensure that this heritage buildings originally designed for a mono-functional purpose, may follow the current evolution of health care as it is geared more to the welfare of the person to the care of the disease.