Ado Donatello Franchini

In the post-industrial time, the process of transformation and growth of the city assumes new names that are very different from those traditionally taken into account by urban history: terms such as New Towns, mega-cities, city/region, Global City, Hyperville, StadtLand, Technopolis, urban archipelago, Urban Islands, New Urbanism, Smart City and others, testify to how population displacement caused by de-industrialization and the computerization of communication in everyday life are evident phenomena of a urban and social reality that comes to the fore with the strength of rapid change and powerful, widespread economies of scale. Among the phenomena that in the last twenty years of the 20th Century created a genuine revolution in the urban structures of the world’s industrial cities, two should be considered crucial: the gradual closure of many productive activities that occupied large parts of urban territory, linked to the abandonment of various obsolete public infrastructures, and the progressive formation of an extended city spreading out along the major lines of communication, also in areas not physically connected to the traditional urban periphery. Also in Italy, the question of re-using land already built on and abandoned constructions provided the opportunity to reintroduce the three themes of urban and architectural research that were typical of previous decades: the morphology of the compact city, the architectural typology as an element of shared civil rules, the conversion and restoration
of existing buildings, which includes the historical querelle between ancient and modern. At long last, the need for projects to include urban
and architectural quality has started to become an objective that is publicly acknowledged, one that is sought after through the medium of public
and private design contests.

When heritage policies and benefits have gradually enabled the process of renovation of the most attractive historical cen­tres, the densest and poorest of them, not being able to count on the rescue provided by tourism, are doomed to suffer from their loss of ‘utilitas’ The double historic centre of the Sicilian city of Ragusa could be a perfect case offering an opportunity to experiment with the innovative potential of this condition. Ragusa is currently a city with the highest ratio of the real estate surface per capita in Italy. If today Ragusa Ibla regained its vitality as a tourist and nightlife destination, Ragusa Superiore needs a new and extensive regeneration process to be launched, which requires comprehensive planning strategies to be adopted and strong economic subsidies to be secured – as the first step, by organising an architectural and urban planning workshop devoted entirely to the historic centre of Ragusa Superiore, a part of a cycle of International Designing Workshops ‘Territories in Evolution” and drew on its years of experience. In any case and in each and every urban centre, basing on a general, common programme drawn up in advance, the objective of any designing workshop is to concentrate proactive skills of an international working group ‘in situ’. The Re-use Ragusa workshop very quickly unleashed a number of ideas, the effects of which can be considered specific and realistic methods of reviving the historic Ragusa. Thanks to the work during the workshop “Re-use Ragusa: Sustainable Strategies to Revive the City Centre”, the students and lectures who were lucky enough to experience the town on a daily basis: live and work here, recollecting their experience of only two weeks in the historic centre of Ragusa Superiore, demonstrated to themselves and to the town residents that positive thinking about an urban and architectural design may offer new perspectives which can creatively benefit from and enhance the already existing resources. The effects of this workshop are the fruit of successful, if unusual, cooperation between municipal authorities and administrators on the one hand and the university on the other, organising this wider highly professional international support.