The Cultural Heritage of Cordoba and Naples boost Climate and Social sustainability actions

Every year, the European Commission and Europa Nostra award projects that promote best practice in heritage conservation and enhancement. In 2022, the winners include PAX - Patios de la Axerquía in the city of Cordoba for “Citizens Engagement & Awareness-raising” and La Cooperativa La Paranza in the city of Naples for “Heritage Champions” (1). Both worked on the “empty/abandoned” urban fabric of “outstanding universal value” (2): the system of los patios of the casas de vecinos of Axerquia in Spain, and the system of religious buildings in Italy. The common vision of the two projects is the rehabilitation of the dismissed spaces within the dense and intricate urban fabric, enhancing their cultural values. The two cases are examined as follows, highlighting their innovative capacity in social cohesion, economic development and climate adaptation. Naples is an important city in southern Italy, its first foundation dates back to the 9th century BC, and the second, as Neapolis, in 470 BC (3). The historic centre of Naples was inscribed on the Unesco World Heritage List in 1995, later extended in 2011, as “it is one of the oldest cities in Europe, whose contemporary urban fabric preserves the elements of its long and important history” (4). The neighbourhood is located in the city heart that is currently one of the most visited places in Naples. Historically, its isolation is attributed to the bridge della Sanità built by the French in 1807. Its rebirth is linked to the cooperative la Paranza founded in 2006 supported by the priest of the basilica of S. Maria della Sanità (5). The priest and a few enlightened citizens have worked on the care of religious buildings together with the local community. These properties are mainly located along the road axis of the Miglio Sacro that crosses the entire neighbourhood (6). The Sanità neighbourhood has an irregular orography and is often affected by alluvial phenomena as outcome of riverbeds formation during heavy rainfall, and the catacombs have been repeatedly buried by debris flowing down from the hill dei Vergini (7). Already in the 18th century, architect Sanfelice dealt with the inhalation of the lava dei Vergini (8) without solving the problem. Sanfelice’s work of containment and drainage can still be seen along vico del Serbatoio allo Scudillo, which runs up the countryside that has survived the expansion. It is a vertical green system typical of Naples and currently provides potential for the climatic adaptation of the historic city. This operation -of reopening and reconnecting the open spaces of the Church estate- affects the neighbourhood liveability both in terms of recovering the cultural heritage and in terms of greenery and permeable soils increasing along this path by offering an adaptation to extreme temperatures and rainfalls. Cordoba is one of the oldest cities in Europe, founded in the mid 2nd century BC, and represents an extraordinary synthesis of East and West culture (9). The city is an enclave between the mountains and the valley of the Guadalquivir River(10), it has developed by adapting over time the Roman and Islamic public space but preserving the residential patio typology. The annual fiesta de los Patios renews the convivial style of this type of dwelling, which since 2012 is also an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity (11): with the Mezquita, the historic centre and Madinat al Zahara Cordoba has four inscriptions on the UNESCO’s W.H. L.. As a response to property speculation and gentrification the association PAX - Patios de la Axerquía (12) promotes a new urban model that aims to enhance the rehabilitation perspective. It is a system of building property co-management that provides the basis for the cooperative acquisition and use of dismissed patio houses. This perspective offers a model for urban regeneration through social innovation. The process is carried out together with citizens that updates the environmental, social, economic and cultural values of the traditional Mediterranean city (the patio), and presents it as a tool for the future development of a sustainable and inclusive city (13). The recovery of the patio houses is a possible innovative/adaptive strategy, traditionally it was the place to cool off from the summer heat, and now reused as a place of social aggregation and environmental improvement (14),it becomes a basic element to reconstruct the Mediterranean urban ecology, to improve biodiversity and to regulate the climate (15). In Naples and Cordoba, the valorisation of dismissed historic spaces has contributed to improving well-being and environmental quality, by re-establishing the original conditions of wind circulation, lighting and therefore ventilation and sunshine, as well as increasing social spaces. In 2023, the two cities met in Cordoba during the Faro en un patio conference aimed at exchanging practices and regeneration actions trough the cultural heritage. During the conference, the multilevel character of these operations clearly emerged, which, through the simultaneous valorisation (16), cultural heritage and living heritage, triggered a process of innovation translated into employment, economic development, social inclusion and environmental quality of the historic city.