Between monuments and factories: an overview

Eleonora D’Agostino (SIMBDEA)

Lucrezia Eritrei (Università degli Studi di Bologna)


The concept of "cultural heritage" has been the result of a process in which normative changes and new perceptions around cultural creativity played a key role, and this process has to be considered always moving and open to new addictions and suggestions.

The prevailing idea of cultural heritage today is proposed by the Faro Convention (2005), that extends the concept of cultural heritage to "all aspects of the environment resulting from the interaction over time between people and places". Faro Convention, indeed, actively redefines the role of humans as creative promoters and innovators of their traditions and cultural practices during time.

The lesson will focus on how, despite the power of this inclusive definition, the perception of what is seen as a cultural heritage is still full of stereotypes, connected to a “global hierarchy of values” that is not inclusive at all for “atypical” heritage.

There are products and practices of human creativity that, although belonging to the sphere of "cultural heritage", do not embody these stereotypes: their perception is distorted, they are not recognized as valid.

Some concrete buildings in Italy commonly called "ecomostro" (translatable as “ecomonster” in English), for example, meet a lot of obstacles to be accepted as heritage: the case study of "Le Lavatrici" in Genoa clearly demonstrates how, behind the stereotypical perceptions, live traditional and innovative architectural, artistic and social values, showing that not everything built in concrete is an “ecomostro”.