Notes on the Italian experience in the preservation of historic centres. Milestones 1950-1990s..

Daniele Pini, University of Ferrara

1. The post-war Italian planning experience in the preservation of the historic cities is quite peculiar and is worth to be considered for some approaches and methods which have characterized the theories and the practice of urban conservation. In particular, two aspects deserve to be mentioned: The concern for the urban fabric - not only the monumental complexes or the listed buildings of the higher architecture but also the vernacular or minor expressions of the residential pattern -, whose historical, morphological and typological layering represents a heritage value in itself; The integration of measures and bylaws (detailed planning codes and building regulations) for the protection of the architectural heritage in the local planning tools, thus making conservation a relevant component of the urban policies carried out by the municipalities and (since the late 70s) the regional governments.

By this means, in most of the Italian cities the morphological complexity and the functional vitality of the historic fabrics have been more or less assured through years and guaranteed a central and proactive role in the wider urban area. So far, since the post war reconstruction and throughout the development of the country into an industrial and post-industrial economy, the preserved historic centres have been the proper cores and sometimes the drivers of an impressive urban transformation, responding to new emerging social and cultural needs whilst keeping their heritage values and significance. The complexity of Italian experience emerges from the theories and practices which succeeded one another from the 50s till the 80s at least, through a rich cultural and political debate which has been fed by not only by relevant academic researches and studies but most of all by cultural associations, professional personalities, municipal policies and plans. 2. New approaches to the conservation and planning issues of Historic Centres turned up in the 50s, going definitely far beyond the usual concerns for the criteria of monuments restoration or the stylistic integration of new buildings in historic settings. On the one hand, with different methodologies and operational outcomes though, some seminal researches on the process of constitution of the urban fabric represented a fundamental contribution to widen the scope of the conservation in the most important Italian historic cities , giving evidence to the close but changing relationship of the urban structure to the site and the environmental characteristics, the multiplicity of historical layers that interact in the urban morphology, the variety and diversity of its structural elements including the public spaces and technical infrastructures, the relevance of the so called vernacular or minor architecture with its richness of constructive elements. Thus, as for Venice, Egle Trincanato publishes in 1948a book called Venezia Minore 1, which shows
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Trincanato, Egle Renata Venezia Minore, Edizioni del Milione, Milano, 1948

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through an accurate architectural survey the fundamental contribution to the shaping of the city in all the ages of the non-representative residential and utilitarian buildings, giving evidence to the extraordinary range of typologies and resulting urban morphologies and spaces. Few years later, in 1959, the Saverio Muratoris book Studi per un operante, storia urbana di Venezia 2, presents a detailed reconstruction of the historic physical development of the urban fabric carried out through an analysis of the plans and structural elements, developing a method that identifies those constants that control the building transformations through times, hence the true essence of the different typologies 3. As a matter of fact, these architectural studies showed new insights into urban history and strongly contributed to the growing awareness of the heritage values of historic cities, whilst forming an invaluable information base for a developing urban planning practice. On the other hand, in the aftermath of the Second World War the physical reconstruction of the stricken cities started together with the development of new urban expansions to accommodate the rushing immigration from the countryside to the cities and from the rural South to the industrialising North. In few years, the pre-war city become just a part of a new larger and fast growing urban area, which required not only interventions of building reconstruction but also infrastructural improvement and upgraded housing conditions, to reach modern standards of living. Italian cities were in fact overcrowded, with an exceeding building density, poor services, weak infrastructural system and severe hygienic conditions. The evidence of a severe disease, led academic and professional circles to be drawn up into a social perspective in the field of architecture and urban planning, bringing an even wider outlook on historic centres. 3. It is worth mention to this regard the pioneering and long lasting work that Giovanni Astengo, editor of Urbanistica - the very influential review of the Istituto Nazionale di Urbanistica - started in the mid 50s for the detailed plan plan of the historic centre Assisi a small medieval city Umbria with the headquarter of the Franciscan Order and an important place of pilgrimages. The plan addressed the preservation of the architectural heritage values of the monumental complexes in parallel with the rehabilitation of the historic urban fabric taking in consideration the socio-economic condition of the resident population. In particular, the plan is based on an extremely detailed surveys which addressed the physical structures as well as the households, and is finalised not only at the widespread protection and enhancement of the historic architectural features but also at the definition of the conservation and/or transformation interventions to improve the living conditions of the resident population. It sets the principle that the importance of the Historic Centres do not lay only in their cultural heritage value but also in the economic value of their housing stock and the central role of their functions, to be preserved and enhanced through very accurate planning tools. Thus the plan consist in a very detailed land use zoning complemented by the identification of specific interventions, with building bylaws aimed at controlling the transformations of the urban fabric through prescriptions for each individual building, based on clear and stringent (though somewhat conventional) conservation criteria. Most of all, the Detailed Plan became a tool to enforce the conservation of the whole fabric of

A first Version (Il Quadro generale dalle origini agli sviluppi) issued in Palladio n3-4, 1959; the Volume was instead published in Rome in 1960 by lIstituto Poligrafico dello Stato This book is complemented by the book of one of his pupil Paolo Maretto: LEdilizia Gotica Veneziana, Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato, Roma 1960. These studies represent the mile stone of an entire school of Urban Analysis based on the so-called typological approach, which was later developed by other influential followers.

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the historic city not as a separate task but as a matter of urban policy, to be set in the wider framework of the Piano Regolatore Generale 4. The work that Astengo begun in Assisi was continued and disseminated in the studies he performed for many other cities (notably Bergamo and Genova) and most of all through his institutional, political and academic activities, becoming a methodological and technical reference for the urban planning practice in Italy. In the 60s and early 70s other plans became a milestone for the consolidation of the conservation planning practice, with different approaches depending on the specific urban conditions and the evolution of the legislative framework, but also owing to the planners personality as much as to the local political situation. An important example is represented by the studies for Urbino an hill town in the Marche, which witness to one of the most important Renaissance centres in Italy carried out by Giancarlo De Carlo between 1958 and 1964. 4. The Piano Regolatore and the detailed plans for the historic centre and the new expansions of Urbino marked indeed a new step forward in the widening of the scope of conservation of Historic Centres as a component of the larger settlement pattern. De Carlo is keen on outlining the intimate relationship between the city and its territory. Like Astengo he believes the historic Centre is a cultural heritage that must be protected as historical, esthetical, architectural evidence; however his research has the merit to add further attentions, in particular to the spatial structure of the urban fabric and its historic landscape but also to the new relationships to be established with the peripheries and the scattered settlements in the countryside. As for the historic centre, the planning tools and the urban design proposals are based on a widespread and accurate protection of the historic architectural features the higher and the vernacular ones but are also deeply focused on the enhancement of the public spaces ( streets, squares, etc..), the valorisation of all types of un-built open areas and the surrounding landscape. The detailed study of the urban morphology gives evidence indeed of a parallel system made of open spaces dealing with the built up fabric and presenting heritage values to be preserved. This relationship makes indeed significant the monuments, which represent the landmarks of both the urban fabric and the landscape. On the other hand, these are not simply the setting or the context of most celebrated architectural masterpieces but have intrinsic values that deserve a specific attention. Hence the surveys and analyses experienced by Astengo in Assisi are integrated by De Carlo, in the

A deepening is needed to explain the Italian urban planning tools drawn up in those years: before the regions fully undertook their legislative power in 1972, urban planning for Historic Centres was managed with the tools defined in the law 1150 of 1942, according to a climax of details from the Piano Regolatore Generale(the general plan covering the whole municipal territory, including urban and rural areas) to the Piano Particolareggiato Esecutivo (a detailed plan for the strategic expansion or renewal areas) and the Piano di Comparto (a more detailed plan for specific areas blocks or complexes identified by the piano particolareggiato). The Piano Particolareggiato must have included the complete list of the concerned cadastral properties, and was susceptible of private owners oppositions and could be subdivided in comparti with specific functions or architectural qualities. It was believed that the Piano di comparto was a successful response for quality architectural issues (in fact it included the definition of the plans, elevations and sections of all the proposed public and private building interventions in scale 1:200), but soon it was discovered unable to match the opinions of the numerous owner involved, and a failure because of the unattainable authority assigned to the public. These tools had the great limit to be nothing but a heavy burden of bylaws binding public and private interventions, and as a matter of facts they were rarely a proactive tool of conservation and regeneration. However, despite their operational limits, in many cities, the surveys and historical analyses these tools required has allowed reaching a very deep knowledge of the urban fabric and its architecture, well beyond the conventional documentation required for the listing of a monument.

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preparation of the plan for Urbino, by visual-analyses that search the perceptive links among the public spaces and the landmarks within the city and in relation with the surrounding territory. These relationships define a spatial framework to protect the historic centre while delimiting the possible domains for urban expansions and transformations. At the same time, they are a source of inspiration and a conceptual reference for the new interventions. Herein urban development areas are not only defined in their localisation and size, but also in the morphological and typological features - not merely copying the historic Centre, rather assimilating its inner principles and transforming them, thus to meet new growing social needs and lifestyles. In De Carlos plan for Urbino, the Historic Centre became the starting point for considerations on the modalities of development of the future city. On the other hand, the plan do not propose the freezing of the historic fabric, and clearly foster a sensible development related both with the outstanding heritage of an important history and the reality of an impoverished and decaying socio-economic context characterised by the decrease in population, the decay of agriculture, and other related phenomena of abandon. The Piano Regolatore was thus intended as a tool to foster an economic development based on local resources and De Carlo looked at the presence of a small University to promote Urbino as an academic city, taking advantage of the outstanding cultural and environmental features of the historic centre and the surrounding landscape. This strategy was initially based on the rehabilitation and reuse of several abandoned or underutilised buildings and architectural complexes of larger dimensions and peculiar typological characteristics, like convents or palatial structures, that could be hardly exploited as residences or reinstated in their original functions. At the same time, new settlements were proposed in the surroundings to create students housing and facilities for research activities and conferences, which were accurately designed to comply with the site and the above mentioned system of visual relationships. The University, in accordance with the Municipality, became the main actor of a new urban development which attributed new functions to the Historic Centre, whilst organising the new expansions and upgrading some emerging suburban areas. On the other hand, the implementation of the Plan was largely influenced by the same De Carlo, who designed all of the most relevant university interventions in the Historic Centre and in the outskirts ensuring a very high architectural quality through a genuine contemporary language both to the adaptive reuse of the historic buildings and the new settlements in the outskirts. Urbino has thus become an internationally recognised case to show the contribution that contemporary architecture can give to the conservation and revitalisation of historic centres, not only respecting its heritage but also learning from it to design the new city. 5. Both the plans of Assisi and Urbino, as well as the plans of other important historic cities, were issued indeed until the end of the 60s, from specific and sometimes exceptional situations. The piani regolatori were at that time not compulsory, if not for those cities listed by the Minister of Public Works which was also in charge for their approval. The two municipalities decided to undertake such a heavy and long planning process because they had received state funds allocated with special laws for the restoration of their monuments and stop their physical decay, but this was not the case for most of the small and medium size cities in Italy where historic cities suffered from decay and abandon.

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The changes and reforms that occurred in the legislative framework since the 60s5 entailed the diffusion of an established planning practice all over the country and progressively provided the tools for a more effective control of the territorial and urban transformations, including a more widespread protection of the historic settlements. The preparation and enforcement of a Piano Regolatore with a clear identification of the zones A to be submitted to protection measures became mandatory for every municipality, even the smaller, and was the first step toward the diffusion of an increasing awareness that a conservation policy should be extended to the whole fabric of the historic cities, not only to the listed buildings or some isolated outstanding spots. In this new framework new diffused planning experiences were carried out also as a response to the need of controlling urban sprawl and transformations in inner cities, in order to ensure a more balanced (we would say today sustainable) development. The conservation of the historic centres was thus set in a new perspective, as an issue of urban policy, relating to their functional role in the larger context of the city and the region. 6. The studies on the historic centre of Bologna, followed by similar experiences in other important cities of the region Emilia Romagna, represented another fundamental milestone in Italian and probably European conservation planning. In the mid 60s the historian and planner Leonardo Benevolo started a series of systematic surveys on the urban fabrics of Bologna, Ferrara and other cities, adopting and revising the typological analysis methodologies of the Muratoris school. In 1969, one of his pupils, Pierluigi Cervellati, became counsellor to urban planning in the municipality of Bologna and showed great administrative skills in urban management drawing up the new Piano Regolatore of Bologna with a comprehensive detailed plan for the historic centre one of the largest in Italy, with strong demographic importance, where still fundamental functions of the actual urban life were concentrated. One of the concerns was to allow for a proactive conservation to fit the new functional needs but also to keep a certain popular and working-class character. In this perspective the preservation of the Historic Centre is outlined as an alternative of the consumers capitalist society, and the proposed rehabilitation is aimed at hindering an overall decay and enhance, as much as possible, the original residential function thus avoiding any further commercial tertiarisation. On the other hand, the Plan of Bologna was consistent with a more global vision of the urban vision aiming at containing and limiting the urban sprawl 6 with a complete recover of the housing potentials of the existing urban areas, the historic centre included. The reuse of the historic fabric building stock was then considered as a fundamental issue to pursue a public policy of controlled urban development, and the typological analysis was adopted as a useful tool to achieve an

In 1967-68, the Law 1150/1942 was integrated by decrees which set the criteria for the definition of the homogeneous zones to be applied by the Piani Regolatori: A- corresponding to the Historic Centre and other historic settlements; B- developing areas to be completed; C- new residential expansions; D- areas for industrial and economic activities; E- agriculture; F- larger equipment and facilities of public interest. This zoning, was connected with land use standards for new public services to be provided in the B, C and D zones, so to ensure a minimum of 18 square meters/inhabitant, based on the expected 10 years demographic increment. This logic differentiate greatly the A zones from the rest, thus the historic centres were usually studied separately with a Piano Particolareggiato. At the ground of this idea to contain the urban sprawl there are probably some theories developed in those years concerning the critic to the growth of human being on the planet and their consumptions, edited by a group of scientist at the MIT ,Massachusetts Institute of Technology (The limits to growth, 1972), where a neo-Malthusian vision of development was exposed, denouncing the link between increments of population, motors, consumptions and the likeable deplete of planets resources.
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optimal operational understanding of the historic fabrics capacity and to plan its reuse for housing and related functions. This analysis is based on systematic surveys of urban fabrics and single properties (referring to the existing cadastral system), with the intention to extrapolate constants and variations of typologies, thus to create a sort of reference catalogue for the interventions of rehabilitation, renovation and even reconstruction of the different building components of the historic fabric. The typological analysis became then a fundamental tool for the draw up of Piano Particolareggiato and for the implementation of the interventions in the different comparti (corresponding to urban blocks), and it was finalised to the drafting of norms ruling the functions and the uses of the buildings (mainly residential, but also public facilities and services), rather than to the reading of the urban morphology or the system of public open spaces. The typological analysis carried out by Cervellati and the municipal offices in Bologna was paralleled and further developed in many other historic centres, i.e. in the studies of Benevolo for Brescia or Caniggia (another pupil of Muratori) for Como, and soon became a typical approach in the preparation and the of the detailed plans for the historic centres in Italy. In this context, however, the Bologna experience remains quite peculiar because of the planning strategy, based on the direct public intervention, and the extent of its implementation. The rehabilitation of the historic centre was indeed undertaken in the early 70s through the application of a recent and innovative legislation for social housing7 and the use of the funds available to this purpose. So far, these legal and financial tools were normally used to build new mass housing schemes in the far periphery, where the public bodies could easily purchase the land at a very low cost. The innovation of Bologna municipality was the use of these tools to intervene in the historic centre, in the most dilapidated or decayed areas that showed a potential for housing reuse and/or renewal and reconstruction. Here, the PEEP (a sectoral social housing plan) of the Municipality identified several comparti of intervention, counting for about 1500 dwellings, thus implementing a public policy aiming at keeping the resident population, particularly the working class, in the city centre, trying to avoid its complete transformation and conversion for commercial and business activities. This urban strategy giving priority to social housing was indeed a very strong ideological statement and an important political standpoint that was adopted by many important local administrations in the country. Besides, it was complemented by a substantial and effective effort to increase the cultural activities and the presence of the University through the reuse of the so called big containers larger buildings with peculiar typological characteristics, such as convents, barracks and obsolete industrial structures. On the other hand, the forthcoming limits of this approach can be found in a rather ordinary architectural quality of some housing rehabilitation interventions and most of all in the difficult, if not impossible, sustainability of the whole project which was largely relied on public resources. 7. Between the end of the 70s and the beginning of the 80s all the regions produced laws on urban planning providing the legal framework to enforce specific regulations concerning the

In particular the L.167/62 which allows the Municipality to expropriate lands for subsidised or public social housing; and the L.865/71 that allows the Municipality to expropriate lands to attain up to the 70% of the housing need calculated on the fore coming 10 years and the draw up to this purpose specific plans (PEEP Piani per l Edilizia Economico Popolare) which have the same legal and administrative value of the Piani Particolareggiati.

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protection of the historic centres through the Piano Regolatore 8. In most of the Regions, attesting on the national law 457/1978 9 and the Emilia-Romagnas experience, the municipal urban plans definitely became the fundamental tool to preserve the historic centre, through the definition of the types of interventions that can be admitted for each individual building. To this purpose, the piano regolatore must identify and delimit all the historic settlements in the territory of the commune, and classifies all the buildings within these Zones A according to the categories of intervention established by the law. In some regions, like the Veneto, these included an extremely detailed and wide range of possible interventions 16 categories from the philological restoration to the simple demolition and had to be justified by a survey form with all the information and a plan of the building. In the 80s these planning tools were consistent with a widespread awareness of the importance of the historic centres, not only as a cultural heritage but also as a social issue and, most of all, an economic asset. The local policies initiated from the 70s entailed a slow but inevitable process of physical conservation that consolidated the principle of the reuse not only for the public interventions but also for the private investments. Moreover, in most of the historic centres of the wealthiest regions, the urban fabric and the heritage buildings begun to be protected not only by the legal and planning framework, but also by the common sense that soon realised that demolition and reconstruction were neither an useful nor a desirable investment anymore. The central location and the functional role of the historic city added to the high environmental quality, to make it attractive for small scale and high range commercial and business activities, whilst its cultural significance begun to become a magnet for tourism and all sort of cultural events. On the other hand, the severe land use limits initially imposed to non-residential uses by the municipal planning tools 10 made the built surfaces available in the Historic Centres a rare asset, hence a very expensive one. Moreover, in the university cities, the increased number of students population entailed an additional demand of housing for rent progressively replacing the local resident population. These changes occurred in a context of widespread and profound transformation of the Italian society, characterised by a diffused industrial development, an increased welfare and new emerging lifestyles. To this purpose, it deserves to mention the diffusion of the house ownership 11 also amongst the low and medium income classes, enhanced by several financial and credit tools but also fostered by the smaller municipalities surrounding the larger and medium size cities. Besides, the average size of the households has dramatically dropped down since the 60s and at
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In 1975, the Regional governments were given the political and administrative responsibilities in the field of urban planning. Several regional legislations, particularly in the North, made the national provisions much more stringent and effective as for the methodology and the technical contents of the planning tools.

The law is called Piano Decennale per lEdilizia Residenziale Pubblica because it provides the management and financial tools for a the-years social housing policy, but it also defines general rules for the recovery of the existing housing stock and urban heritage and gives the Regions relevant autonomous powers for their implementation. In particular, referring to the most relevant experiences on historic centres, it defines the fundamental categories of intervention to be applied, i.e. maintenance, restoration and rehabilitation, renewal and reconstruction, urban redevelopment. The earliest and probably most systematic regional law is probably the one of Emilia Romagna (LR.47/78) that fixes very detailed and stringent criteria as for the regulatory content of the urban planning tools; in particular, the Piano Regolatore has to fix the categories of intervention for each building included in the Zone A, which makes redounding the study of a piano particolareggiato covering the whole historic centre. For example there was the limit to use the ground floors ,or in some exceptions also the mezzanine, for commerce

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Italy is probably, among European countries, the one with higher percentage of house owners: in 2000 the 72% of households where living in the house they owned

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the turn of the century barely reached 2 persons by family, as a consequence of the ageing of the population but also of new lifestyles that generated a new housing demand, i.e. by young couples and singles. In this framework, the quest for housing ownership was largely satisfied by the increasing sprawl of a disordered diffused urbanisation, where low density residential developments provided affordable housing due to the low cost of the land, whilst ensuring accessibility to work and services in the city centre mostly by private car. As a matter of facts, despite the initial purposes, these processes entailed an important decrease of the population of the inner areas in most of the cities, Bologna firstly. Urban sprawl was not arrested or contained, rather simply displaced on external zones, in the smaller communes of the surroundings. In this framework, the Historic Centre was any more competitive in terms of real estate for affordable housing, and rapidly loose low and medium income population, especially young families that were more and more attracted by the housing market opportunities of the new diffused suburban areas. 8. In the 80s and 90s, all over Italy, most of the Historic Centres have definitely lost the majority of its population in favour of the suburbs and surrounding small-size-municipalities and is mostly inhabited by an elderly and wealthy population (that can afford the interventions and materials requested by the norms) of house owners or by temporary residents. But a large part of the population that now lives in the suburban areas still works or have access to services in the historic centre, which is still the core for administrative functions and has an important role for commerce, leisure, culture and tourism, more and more becoming an identitarian place for the sprawled settlements of the suburban areas. An irreversible phase of commercial conversion and population altering has thus started that will last until today, whilst the physical setting, thanks to the implementation of the conservation planning tools, is not simply preserved but often increasingly enhanced (the required private intervention on properties is ever-growing demanding). The Plans providing the norms for the interventions in the Historic Centres are still enforced 12 and are no longer subject of discussion. It is clear, however, that new opportunities of conversion and reuse may arise, such as industrial dismissed areas or obsolete buildings for public utilities, whilst new issues are created by the functional changes that progressively become the focus of the planning action 13. If the resident population decreases, the number of the city users, for different reasons, has increased dramatically, most of them accessing the historic centre by car. Thus traffic and the related problems of pollution, congestion and parking availability are amongst the major issues being debated, with severe reactions to every attempt to limit the motorized access to the historic Centres and promote pedestrian areas. Several pioneering experiences14,
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For example in Ferrara the plan today is the Plan of 1975, with obvious and natural updating

By the half of the 90s with the law L.493/93 and the related subsequent regional laws, new legal and planning tools have been developed for urban regeneration, i.e. the Programmi di Riqualificazione urbana (PRU) that mainly address the recovery and renewal as well as the functional conversion of the ever-growing dismissed areas, often located on the boundaries of the historic city. They are not ordinary urban planning tools, rather Programs promoted by the municipalities in association with private investors. These have often started with private initiatives later adjusted with municipal plans, to have public (regional or governmental) support in the implementation of infrastructures and services. In general, the PRU do not concern directly the historic Centre but may have nonetheless great influence on them, since they can provide facilities and services to improve accessibility or promote processes of functional conversion and reuse. To this purpose, is worth to mention several experiences carried out since the late 60s. The first experience was in Siena in 1967, where the central road was made pedestrian-only, soon followed by large areas of the historic centre.
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have shown that pedestrianisation not only represents a fundamental contribution to the rehabilitation of the historic fabric and to the improvement of the environment, but also that for these reasons it makes the central areas even more valued for tertiary activities. This add new conflicts and contradictions since it may favour a further evolution of the commerce within historic centres: the corner shops indeed have more and more difficulties to survive, not only because of the changing demand due to the decrease of the resident population and its new composition, but also because of the increasing rents which are affordable only for upper range activities. Paradoxically enough, despite the ideological and political premises, since the 80s conservation has resulted in a real-estate valorisation, and the Italian Historic Centres have become less and less affordable to low and middle income classes, as well as to small-size commerce and handicraft. 9. In this evolution there is a parallel ever-growing demand for cultural activities and events which find their location in the Historic Centres, besides the so-called cultural tourism that already makes the citt darte a first destination for both their tangible (architecture and cities) and intangible (traditions and culture) heritage. Ferrara is an interesting example, as in the 80ies (1987) deliberately invested in the cultural industry as pull-factor for the city economic, to be promoted through the conservation and rehabilitation of its architectural and urban heritage. The public administration draft a project called Progetto Mura that included the city-walls restoration, both rampart and surrounding green areas, within a wider program of rehabilitation and reuse of some convents and buildings close to the walls, with the aim of creating a new system of cultural facilities. This project was developed in the framework of the Piano Regolatore and aimed at connecting the natural protected area of river Po with the green areas of the city, to which the walls are part, thus protecting also an agricultural landscape of relevant heritage value. The Progetto Mura showed that a good Plan is not enough: a vision and a program was needed to achieve the objectives of the conservation of the heritage values. In turn, these have to be linked to an overall perspective of economic development and functional strengthening of the city to become sustainable. The Project was build on an attentive analysis of Ferrara economic disease (at that time it was the poorest Province of the Region) and initially implemented with FIO(Fondi Investimenti e Occupazione) funds designated for population employment. It aimed at the reconversion of the economic base of the city, largely owing to agriculture and a big chemical industry. To this purpose, Culture, i.e. history, art, museums, and the physically preserved historic centre with its university appeared then to be the assets Ferrara had to invest in. Hence the rather naf but clear concept of culture industry, was strategically chosen to induce development and employment. This view has also fostered the promotion of parallel initiatives like the constitution of municipal agencies to organise national level events: i.e. Ferrara Pittura, promoting important art exhibitions in the restored palaces or Ferrara Musica in collaboration with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra established in Ferrara by Claudio Abbado in 1998. At the same time, the university development found a suitable ground in the context proposed by the Municipalitys conservation program, and several associations were able to promote activities of different kind.
In Urbino, the Plan of De Carlo proposed the recovery of a lower parking area underneath the Borgo del Mercatale, the restoration of an historic ramp designed by Francesco Di Giorgio Martini and the construction of a lift to reach directly the pedestrian historic area from the parking. Perugia also is quite exemplificative: the historic centre (on top of a hill) has been made totally pedestrian-only and a large system of parking and moving staircases is organized to allow the access.

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Beyond the restoration of an important physical heritage, the program proved to be successful in increasing the environmental quality and liveability of the Historic Centre, and sustainable since it the cultural industry continues to create economic opportunities through cultural tourism, research and service activities. This highlight the concept that a conservation policy can not limited to the physical intervention on an or a series of objects considered in itself, but has to be pursued as a process concerning a system creating the opportunity to develop new functions and give new impulses and perspectives to the city. 10. Several experiences in Italy show that a preserved Historic Centre can attract high quality activities and became a reference point for the larger urban area and the region counting on its heritage, hence on the projected image of the city and its intrinsic potentials. It is more and more evident that the historic city represents a heritage asset in itself, beyond the most celebrated monuments of outstanding spots, whose rehabilitation and regeneration necessarily implies a dynamic process creating constant opportunities and conflicts. In many cases - not only in Venice or Florence, just to mention two extreme situations - tourism and culture have probably been the unplanned but unavoidable destiny of Italian cities that counted on a widespread preservation of the physical heritage features but has definitely entailed the irreversible loss of a rich social life. They are at the same time reasons of the radical change of the original socio-economic condition, and basis of an urban physical conservation that in any case allows the historic city to be still the centre and the core of the city-life. Whether the original objectives have been often missed, other unplanned opportunities came out. Thanks to its new functions the historic city conserves the identity as a space, place and image, thus representing a fundamental element of identification for the larger urban society and a driver for its development.

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