The Legitimacy of a Project: the Varrese Tomb between Urban Landscape and Preservative Instances

Abstract

The <normalization> of the cultural offer, represented by the chance to see in their own original location, cultural heritage otherwise intended for cultural containers of different geographical areas, has dictated during these recent decades the cultural policy of reconstruction in an exhibition project, fulfilled in the city of Canosa (BT), of the “corredo gentilizio” belonging to the Varrese Tomb that was dismembered following its discover in 1912 and where its evidences have became part of the National Archaeological Museum of Taranto and the Bari Provincial Museum collections. Within the set-up experience of Palazzo Sinesi, the first founding elements of a more ambitious valorization plan have been organized (exhibition "The Varrese Tomb: from old excavations to reconstruction of the archaeological landscape"). The evaluative dynamics of a communication and promotion plan for the city of Canosa have been enforced by the identification of a protection and appreciation project of the Varrese hypogeum, in the past, object of excavations campaigns that stressed the architectural structure of the Tomb divided into several rooms, the compliance of the hypogeum to complex build history, the need for monumentalizing of the system that invested the underground spaces and areas close to them. The cover design of the funeral system has achieved a milestone, as planning application within a heavily degraded context, for the purposes of reconstruction of archeological landscapes in Daunia epoch. The structure, achieved only partially, does not deliberately close itself towards outdoor areas and has a significant importance in the prospects, in order to avoid the idea of a minimization of unjustified and archaeological “ingabbiatura”. The search for appropriate solutions in the field of enhancement of the archeological heritage in Canosa has time and ways of implementation l certainly not suiting to optimal working schedule but it appears important to the definition of a "design model" which safeguards the archeological heritage fragmented by the long history of its research.