Interventi su facciate storiche non monumentali. Esperienze recenti a Roma nel Rione Esquilino

This paper reports the participatory process that has recently led to the maintenance works on the facade of one of the buildings Vittorio Emanuele II in Rome. This experience is hinged to the long-standing issue concerning the architectural surfaces of the historic city and their colour, the very recent rush unchained by the tax benefits offered to citizens to refurbish the facades of their properties (the so-called ‘Bonus facciate’), the mechanisms related to ‘participatory conservation’, and the difficult condition experienced by Rome’s public administration in the last decades, as well as various issues concerning academic commitment in research, teaching and active citizenship within the realm of urban conservation. At the center of the discussion there is a paradigmatic case of ‘simple’ maintenance of an historical facade, valuable yet not protected, around which the attempt to rethink the quality of the project in a complex context such as the current reality of Rome is discussed. In the historic center of the Capital, and more specifically in the case of the late 19th century buildings surrounding piazza Vittorio Eman- uele II, the outcome of this kind of works is considered the least important issue, lacking in terms of attention for its historical-critical and aesthetic aspects, for its necessary insertion within the urban scale, and for the overall respect of the cultural values that these facades still conserve.