Spazi del Fare. I luoghi della produzione tra la bassa pianura friulana, il Carso e l'Istria slovena (original) (raw)

The volume illustrates the main historical-architectonic buildings, built for productive purposes, in Italy and Slovenia and considered in the European project «The places of production and technological innovation in the thematic tourism». They are the only ones that could be documented among a large number of these places, mainly disappeared or altered. The project intended to document, not only for scientific, tourist and cultural motives, all those buildings that are usually included in the definition of “industrial archaeology”. However, it is also concerned with the many buildings devoted to handicraft and agriculture activities such as smithies, joineries, mills, dairies, cellars, silkworm-breeding rooms and so forth. Cards were prepared illustrating in-depth the 124 structures considered of greater importance. They compose a catalogue including present day colour prints and, whenever possible, maps and old, sometimes unpublished photographs, which were also used for the recent exhibition. They are the result of an in-depth survey, a collection of the available printed or oral information, a dialogue with municipalities and a research in historical cadastres and in public or private archives. Ranging from the typical specimens of the rural civilization to the most illustrious examples of industrial archaeology, an easy-to-interpret “interface” has been used to allow the reader to understand a field of study, not so well-known, pertaining to the “spaces of making”. Reading the catalogue is not difficult. The standard card has a structure deliberately restricted to the essential elements: it contains the basic data about the subject, namely denomination, position, date (at least roughly), current ownership, essential description and general references (bibliographical, archival and oral sources). The wider “field” is obviously the one regarding the description, because it suggests a short historical synthesis, offering sufficient information for a good comprehension, and giving many hints for further in-depth studies. Each card carries a symbol representing the real state of preservation, and it is enriched by a plentiful iconographic apparatus. Regarding the cards as a whole, a closely chronological sequence has been rejected for the impossibility of dating beyond doubt all building: that’s why it has been chosen a typological order. The catalogue begins with cards concerning production places connected with the pre-industrial world: farms, manor-houses with their own annexes, rural appendages of aristocratic country-houses (villas), rustic buildings of “spontaneous architecture”. Then there is a detailed report on the subjects pertaining to the different kinds of handicraft and trades that characterized the rural society as well as the early industrial one: “space” devoted to weaving, milling, clay or stone working, water-supplying or the supplying of sea-salt, the use of metals etc. The catalogue ends with a short series of production places belonging to the age of Industrialization, with some examples representative of industrial archaeology. To conclude the volume, the post faction sums up the main categories, continuing and widening the analysis developed in the exhibition posters. The main research questions are then re-discussed, stimulating scholars, administrators and common people to re-appraise, re-use and re-invent this historical heritage, perishable beyond all appearance: because it is urgent to saving those “things” that today must be considered as rarities, possibly making them available for a thematic cultural tourism, as it is already done in other parts of Europe.