Contemporary City and Archaeological Areas: towards an integrated urban regeneration project

The paper focuses on the relationship between the contemporary city and territorial cultural frameworks, with particular reference to archaeological areas, within innovative governance and planning systems based on an integrated multidisciplinary approach. This relationship, although debated at an architectural scale, is still insufficiently deepened in recent reflections and experimentations. Archaeological areas are often considered as heterotopies, separated entities in opposition with the active city. This exclusion, increasingly when they constitute an infrastructural layer in the landscape, turns into fragmentation, indifference and, consequently, degradation following a process that is both material and immaterial as involves the community and its identity values. This issue should be brought back to the centre of the debate in order to pursue an integrated and sustainable territorial development, capable of generating employment, stimulating creative activities, increasing social inclusion and cohesion. The paper compares different case studies selected to define an experimental proposal of methodological and operational references related to an integrated regeneration project. Looking to deepen in the actual cultural and social frame the concept of musealisation in opposite to trivialization, the conclusion identifies potential and limits of the design solution in terms of innovation, integration, regulation and management also considering the socioeconomic costs and the feasibility of the process.