The Palmanova Cantonments: Conservation, Value-Enhancement and Transformation for an Integrated and Overall Regeneration

Italian military real-estate is highly varied as regards its location, intended uses, its typological, stylistic, and constructive features and its state of conservation. What historical and documental value can we attribute to the typological and technical aspects of military buildings? What problems and strategies have to be studied before such buildings can be repurposed for inclusion into a circuit of social and civil uses? Some attempts were made to answer these questions by analyzing the military real estate of Palmanova, the fortress city founded by the Serenissima Republic of Venice in 1593, a city designed by engineers, military analysts, and expert military architects all answerable to the Fortifications Office of Venice. There are a number of barracks situated inside the city’s fortified walls, within a somewhat confined area: Montezemolo, Isonzo, Ederle, Filzi, Montesanto and others in outlying villages. Barracks built in different periods (some during the Renaissance, others in the eighteenth century and some even after the Second World War) have been gradually phased out of service. Their restoration and functional leverage, in the early years of this century, were discussed in terms of an economic and cultural strategy that would not upset the city. New regeneration strategies are called for if these abandoned military structures are not to undergo further deterioration. These strategies should be based upon a knowledge of these structures’ features their layout, architecture, technologies and should also embrace local policies, but first and foremost they require real, contextualized and economically sustainable projects.