Heritage Enhancement and Communication: “Palazzo Te allo Specchio” follow-up

Oscar Wilde in The Picture of Dorian Gray denounced the double face of the beauty: eternal youth at the price of corruption of the soul. Nowadays, the risk befalling architectural heritage is the same: preservation of the monument at the price of its marketing. Which perspectives may arise from such a remark? Problems connected to the 70’s methodologies of preservation appear now as out-of-date due to the cogency of a much relevant problem: the unavailability of the finances needed to carry out even the most ordinary maintenance procedures. The critical urgency is shifting from a cultural to an economical dimension and the present times are not favourable ones. It is necessary, therefore, to make the management of the monument a previous step to its preservation, also for the reason that we understand that nowadays the economic management stands to preservation as oxygen to human life. As people in charge, as being cultural operators before being economic ones, we cannot afford to be deprived of the coordination of the process, in order to ensure preservation to be regarded as a primary issue for architecture. How to carry this out? The purpose of the present communication idea is to create a doorway towards the future for architectural design linked to photography, to the digital world and to the survey for architectural heritage. The processing of digital techniques for the design is based upon an attentive inquiry on Luigi Ghirri’s photography and on his personal way of representing the Pianura Padana. For this edition of the Forum we will present the follow-up of “Palazzo Te allo Specchio” exhibition.