Luca Ortelli

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Taking inspiration from Rafael Moneo's famous text on the life of buildings, as proposed by the Mazzocchio editorial team, the following considerations pose the problem of the limits of the re-interpretation of architecture.

 

Although the current notions of reuse in relation to heritage should be looked at with a positive eye, the absence, in this area, of articulated theoretical positions should not be underestimated. In fact, it seems to me that beyond the virtuous examples of reuse, in many cases this practice is conducted in a hasty and superficial way. In fact, very often reuse practices are considered positive for the simple fact of having been implemented and beyond the actual results.

 

Reuse as an architectural strategy is establishing itself within the "Western" architectural debate and practices, conveyed by the general awareness of the limits of development and the consequent need to produce sustainable architecture (as everyone knows, the sustainability of a building has not to be measured only on actual energy consumption but takes into consideration the entire life cycle of buildings, with particular attention to gray energy).

 

The problematic aspect of reuse consists firstly in the dimension of this practice and precisely because of the absence of solid theoretical assumptions, today we talk about reuse both when an existing building - perhaps destined for abandonment or demolition - is made usable again, or when components or parts of existing buildings are used in the construction of a new one.

 

Beyond the technical aspects, the fundamental problem consists in the ability to recognize the practical and intellectual value of reuse and, in general, in the capacity of architects, engineers and authorities responsible for heritage to express well-founded judgements. From this perspective, the question that arises spontaneously is the following: are our schools of architecture capable of transmitting the knowledge necessary to operate conscientiously in this delicate area?

 

I would tend to give a negative answer to this question, given that I believe that the simple fact of proposing reuse projects to students is not sufficient to guarantee future architects the knowledge necessary to successfully carry out any type of intervention on the existing heritage, beyond of the historical/artistic value of the building on which the intervention is carried out. Following what has been said, the question is always the same: to what extent can we rely on "learning by doing"?