Cold War Heritage in Northeast Italy, A Challenge for Landscape Design

Abstract

Throughout the twentieth century, Friuli Venezia Giulia, the north-eastern region of Italy that borders Austria and Slovenia, played a strategic wartime role. From the Great War to the Cold War, the installation of defensive works including barracks, fortifications and infrastructure distinguished the territory. A significant rationalization in the territory and modification in the organizational structure of the Armed Forces took place from the end of the Cold War, through the EU expansion to the countries located on the north-eastern border of Italy, and up to the Army’s transformation from conscription to voluntary service. The town of Casarsa della Delizia represents a case of important significance due to the presence of the “Trieste” barracks, a settlement of extensive and significant environmental impact, a part of which has not been used for years, becoming over time a landscape-abandonment issue, on which action is needed. The paper focuses on the proposals to recover this former military area as a new integrated part of the city, merging the necessity of saving the past heritage and developing a new landscape vision, bringing together the historical and contemporary ways of living and promoting urban regeneration complex operations.