Historical Buildings Affected by Failures. The Case of the Basilica di Collemaggio in L’Aquila

Abstract

Since the deep damages occurred to the European architectural heritage after the Second World War, the conservation theory had to face with a complex issue: the partial or totally missing cultural heritage. Among the application of different solutions, the use of reconstruction of destroyed buildings became a recurrent proposal, adopted in many occasions, from Warsaw Castle to Mostar Bridge. In addition, the buildings hit by earthquakes represent a limit conditions for the application of the common procedures coming from the conservation approach. The recent intervention on the Basilica di Collemaggio, a building deeply damaged after the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake, showed an interesting development of the design choices, based on a multidisciplinary approach to the preservation issue. This restoration work collects the difficulties belonging to the theoretical background met in previous experiences, like the discussion on the early 2000 reconstruction of the Frauenkirche in Dresden or the Cathedral of Noto. Moreover, respect to other cases here presented, the set of interventions characterizing Collemaggio were defined according to multi-criteria analyses supported by the different levels of details provided by the digital model of the religious complex.