Conservation of Historical Port Architecture: Knowledge as a Means to Aid Conservation

A research project focused on some historic buildings in the port area of Genoa tried to answer the following questions: Is it possible to preserve historic buildings, hand down their memory, make their history understood and at the same time give them new functions? How far can new living and working requirements be reconciled with the preservation of historical structures. The project is part of a broader research plan that has already been underway for some years at the Department of Architecture and Design (University of Genoa) on the subject of warehouses serving the port; medieval warehouses that have been transformed several times in different periods. The article will illustrate the methodology applied for the virtual reconstruction of the Molo district, its warehouses and in particular the Magazzino del Sale (Salt Warehouse) located in vico Malatti 13r, with detailed historical analyses in the archives, accurate surveys and complex archaeological analyses. The research work began from the only certain evidence of the presence of the Magazzino del Sale, a document in “Fondo Tipi” kept at the Genoa State Archives. From this single documentary trace, the research proceeded backwards, analyzing existing documents on the “Molo” Genoa’s district, namely the “cabella embulorum” and the “embulorum figuratis”, year 1544; the traces of all other warehouses in the neighbourhood were also reconstructed. The novelty of this intervention is that, unlike previous examples which had involved universities, control institutions and public bodies, this time the main stakeholder is the building ownership. This represents a major novelty: there are multiple constraints on utilization, but the owner has proved to be attentive and cooperative, aware of the importance of the building for understanding a part of the city’s history. This Awareness was present since the beginning, but it consolidated in the course of this research. From this understanding a whole series of other possibilities for study and research have arisen. The reflection we want to bring here is on the need to induce this awareness in private citizens as well: only in this way will they be open to real collaboration with the institutions responsible for research and protection. And this not only for protected assets but also for the non-protected ones as they constitute a widespread, diffused, sometimes little-known but very characteristic heritage of most sites around the Mediterranean. This could be the turning point for their survival.