Fourteenth International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

The continuous reinterpretation of the various conceptual perspectives on vernacular construction, combined with the progressive transformations of rural areas and the consequent awakening of nostalgia for a heritage in constant obsolescence, have accentuated the ambiguity of the term and, weakening the boundaries of “what is or is not vernacular”, have led to a new and controversial architectural expression. The forms that for years were considered disruptive to the vernacular heritage have become the closest reality that exists to the vernacular and have progressively invaded the places that remain faithful to rurality itself. The concept of vernacular, until then consecrated, becomes insufficient to incorporate and characterize the architectural heritage that constitute the villages. Starting from two opposite realities inserted by the Romanesque Route – Village of Quintandona and Village of Ordins, - the present research shows the typological variety of the architectures that constitute these contemporary villages in order to underline, on one hand, the continuity and adaptive reuse of a (disappearing) know-how properly adjusted and in dialogue with techniques and forms interpreted as disruptive and away from rurality and, consequently, the need to rethink the vernacular architectural heritage in face of the values and meanings associated with it.