Università Roma Tre

What is heritage? What is landscape? Identity, duration, memory and storytelling
Thinking about heritage is thinking about time, identity, memory and storytelling. Heritage coincides with these values and therefore with the landscape. Landscape describes and preserves heritage, memory, identity and durability of the material and immaterial values. Landscape is the connective tissue; it is a repository of memories. Landscape is the product of interactions between physical data and human events. Landscape is a heritage for all. It provides opportunities, economic, ecological, social, recreational and educational activities to help communities to understand themselves and be able to direct the development of a country. But, how can this tangible and intangible heritage be read, interpreted and re-used in a sustainable city and cultural landscape development?

How to read landscape: a study methodology
Landscape planning (and the study of physical heritage) requires a holistic vision, opened and dynamic, because landscape is the result of many features and integrated values. So we have to overcome sectorial and disciplinary visions. We need to reach a global vision able to use the different technical and scientific specializations that characterize contemporary culture. This can be achieved through a work of coordination between different actors and integration among the fields of knowledge. So it’s necessary to coordinate and bring together the different fields of knowledge and to build an organic vision. All these conditions clarify the process and the strategic analysis, and facilitate the communication of results. Communication is important to involve people, to make them participate to the values expressed by landscape. Landscape is a dynamic entity, constantly changing. The communities are involved in its transformation and management. Therefore it’s vital to make them part of the transformation process and bring back to their memory the different layers which all together build the cultural identity of places. In order to develop an experience of contemporary landscape and physical heritage we have to conduct an analysis of the physical state of the object by a multidisciplinary analysis, both direct and indirect. Landscape and its history can be investigated through the expressions of tangible and intangible culture, through the study of visible and invisible data. Indirect and regressive analysis (archival studies, topography, geomorphology, historical and modern maps, iconography, etc.) will be integrated with the investigation on field, with the intention to recognize, distinguish, identify, and measure the place. Diachronic analysis of the different layers is essential to identify and distinguish shapes and permanent values compared to the structural changes introduced in the contemporary physical environment From this analysis we can begin the representation and interpretation of the landscape.

“Heritage” Course Heritage on the road: the Ancient Via Latina.
Space, movement, memory and artefacts through urban and suburban landscape
Could - and should - urban space be considered cultural heritage? If so, how can we reveal the hidden properties of the spatial system, so to turn it into a cultural landscape? And how could these properties be communicated in order to integrate space as cultural heritage into contemporary and social construction processes? How can cities integrate historic layers (palimpsests) into their urban development? The project aims at critically examining and synthesizing archaeological and urban artefacts, matching them with other memories of human experience in the urban landscape. Our intention is to analyze and interpret the city of Rome following roman aqueducts (from Porta Capena to Parco degli Acquedotti) with its surroundings, hypothetically made up of five distinguishable, interrelated layers: [1] The original landscape: the topography of the ancient city; [2] Classical Rome (a period of ca. twelve centuries); [3] Medieval Rome (ca. ten centuries); [4] the Rome of the Renaissance and Baroque (ca. four centuries); [5] Modern and contemporary Rome (after 1871). These different layers have constantly interacted through the historical development of urbanism, and their existing elements in the urban landscape will be identified, studied and described by students in different ways such as mapping, storytelling collection, archival research etc. The imprints of the various chronological layers may occur in the spatial organization, in artefacts, or in “tenacious” physical, social and cultural structures. One hypothesis is that these structures have to a large extent determined the development of the urban landscape of cities and that also in modern times they continue to structure urban spaces and surroundings – and the evolution of social communities around them.
Three scales: from monument to landscape
The Course deals with different scales of landscape, from monument to territory. The analysis will be developed following the route of the ancient Via Latina, organized in stages, from the center of the city of Rome (Central Archaeological Area) to the outskirts, until reaching the last remains of Agro Romano. Stages coinciding with operating steps are: 1. Via Latina inside the city walls (Porta Capena, Servian Wall and Central Archaeological Area; Passeggiata Archeologica, Tomba degli Scipioni, Terme di Caracalla, Aurelian Wall and Gates -Porta San Sebastiano and Porta Latina) 2. Via Latina through the planned city (Appio Latino neighborhood and Parco della Caffarella) 3. Via Latina through the suburbs (Parco delle Tombe Latine and Tor Fiscale neighborhood) 4. Via Latina through the Agro Romano landscape

The bibliography will be suggested during the course

Thinking about heritage is thinking about time, identity, memory and storytelling.
Landscape coincides with these values, it can be considered as the connective tissue: a memories repository of the material and immaterial values.
In order to develop an experience of contemporary landscape and physical heritage we have to conduct a multidisciplinary analysis, both direct and indirect.
Landscape and its history can be investigated through the expressions of tangible and intangible culture, through the study of visible and invisible data.
Indirect and regressive analysis (archival studies, topography, geomorphology, historical and modern maps, iconography, etc.) will be integrated with the investigation on field, with the intention to recognize, distinguish, identify, and measure the place.
Our intention is to analyze and interpret the ancient via Latina with its surroundings.
The Course deals with different scales of landscape, from monument to territory.
The analysis will be developed following the route of the ancient street, organized in stages, from the Rome city center (Central Archaeological Area) to the outskirts, until reaching the last remains of Agro Romano.
The different layers, which have constantly interacted through the historical development, will be identified, studied and described by students in different ways such as mapping, storytelling collection, archival research etc.
Diachronic analysis of the different layers will be essential to identify and distinguish shapes and permanent values compared to the structural changes introduced in the contemporary physical environment
From this analysis we will begin the representation and interpretation of the landscape aiming at critically examining and synthesizing archaeological and urban artefacts, matching them with other memories of human experience in the urban landscape.