The Conservation And Innovation Of Italian Urban Heritage In The Po River Area

The thesis THE CONSERVATION AND INNOVATION OF ITALIAN URBANHERITAGE IN THE PO RIVER AREA is about the methodological study on the urbanheritage research in Italian medium and small towns of Po river area since1950s. Urbanheritage, differ from cultural relics, means the continuous existing built environment whichhas relations to historic events or with historic values, including historic buildings,environment and urban landscape that can be renewed and reused. It raises the concept thatthe living urban heritage is the strategic resource for the future of a historic town. The study isbased on the developed culture, economy and abundant urban heritages resources in Italy, aswell as the long history of practices on urban heritage reservation and innovation. It tookexemplary cases which concern the relations between technologies and the social andeconomic background to analyze the Italian experience and the possible application for China.The Article is divided into6chapters. The introduction illuminates the object of studyand its background, research content, significance, status and methodology. The study of thesocial and economic process is about the brief urban history and the development of the urbanheritage conservation and innovation theory and practices since1950s. It also concludes theurban and landscape topics through case study. Then the paper is talking about key issues inthe urban heritage study from an aspect of policies and regulations, lists the timeline of Itlianbig events and urban heritage practices. The next two chapters are case studies about thelegislative and regulative experiments as well as the embedment of the contemporary designinto the existing historic environment. At last it gives an example of the application in China.The Italian experience of the urban heritage conservation and innovation is to intervenethe living heritage in the historic area. Italian researchers are very good at regulating spatialrules and scales, establishing logical continuity between the old and new, foreseeing thedevelopment and conflicts of the city and of the city users in the real urban environment. Thehistoric information is inherent inside the historic area. Thus the innovation of the urbanheritage will help the extension of social meanings, the mix of artificial environment will helpto unify the difference between modern and traditional contexts.The crisis of modernity brings comprehensive damages to the urban heritage. No matterhow long it will take to form them, ruin could be in a sudden and irreversible. In another hand,the pure protection and preservation is also inappropriate because current activities alsoinfluence their future strongly. This idea gives a new duty to take urban heritage as keyelements for the social development. The more creations of innovation happen, the morechances occur. The article takes several important towns as case study through typological, historicaland economic aspects. It compares the Bologna and the Comacchio cases, analyze the Genoa,Urbino and Ferrara cases to discuss the experiments on legitimate regulations, theregeneration of historic area and the specific design intervenes. Besides, it takes the case ofZhongshan in PRD as an example for the affinities in the urban heritage study.In recent decades, the changes of the cultural tendency and consuming behaviors, as wellas the rediscovery of the important of case study, give a special social background for theunique of urban heritage. In the meantime, the environmental issues, regional integration andthe urban clusters bring new chances for the urban heritage study. The paper emphasize thatthe conservation and innovation of the Italian urban heritage is a cultural process includingthe way of thinking, the social concern, the power relations and the technological method. Tounderstand it will help the understanding of the Italian experience and social image.