Il palinsesto paesaggistico dell’Orto Botanico di Roma. Trasformazioni, riusi, prospettive di restauro

The Botanical Garden of Rome is part of the Sapienza University. It was established on a portion of the original Corsini’s park at Lungara in 1883. Since then, a series of events have led to the loss of the original structure of the Corsini garden to accommodate new botanical collections in line with the needs of the university institution. Today, restoring this garden implies a series of reflections on how this activity should confront with the site's history and with its materials, plant, and non-plant. All this implies a specific reflection on the meaning of degradation of a historic garden, on the role of pre-existing elements, interpreted as ‘persistence’, and therefore on restoration is understood as conservation of the existing and interpretation of the past. In this way, the project has been interpreted as a new structure added, as the last “layer” to the history of the garden, containing the evocation of certain elements structuring the original form, conserving the current one and giving new functions to the green and built spaces, in line with the museum use of the Botanical Garden.