Memory: changes and opportunities. Urban and territorial changes in the case study of Fiuggi

The ideas of identity and memory, if on the one hand define the human and architectural history of the places and populations that inhabit them, on the other hand they can constitute an antemural to the urban and architectural design, suffocating the only possibility of rebirth for some consolidated urban realities immobilized in the quagmire of indiscriminate conservation and nostalgic memory. In particular, here we want to propose the case of Fiuggi, a small urban center located in lower Lazio and – until a few years ago – an important national and international thermal centre which, after the decline of thermal practice as a health therapy, it remained full of an extended architectural heritage of inadequate buildings, useless for the new needs of contemporary living – now turned into modern ruins. The uniqueness of Fiuggi allows us to reflect on the relationship between cultural heritage and artificial places, understood as an architectural specificity that contributes to the overall pheno-menology of the urban center itself, due to the blend of the village and surrounding territory and, also, to the high number of fine architecture built after the 1920s – as the Baths of Bonifacio by Luigi Moretti were – that have contributed, in the past, to the economic and productive development of the centre. The enhancement of a place with such a strong identity, which during the last century has given impetus to the economy of the entire Anticolana valley, appears as a necessary re-quirement to activate a strategic rehabilitation process in architectural and urban fields that has, among its results, those of economic revival and social revitalization. In this way we try to highlight and deduce the strong identity vocation of Fiuggi compared to the system of small surrounding towns and to systematize the urban, social, cultural and economic dynamics of the centre itself. Fur-thermore, we are able to activate actions related to the knowledge and recognition of the urban and landscape value of the place; actions also linked to an ethical sense of memory that allows us to in-terpret the place as an “opportunity” for a conscious, exact and careful re-planning.