“Historical value and exploitation through a multiethnic culture: rehabilitation of the former fire brigade barrack of Potenza (South of Italy).”

The research after a careful study on the historical-cultural valences that the former fire brigade barrack building of Potenza in Basilicata (South of Italy) have had in the course of his history, tends to give again value to the structure passing through a new function for a new reality. It was erected in 1929 after a 1926 project by eng. Bardi after the commitment of the Municipality of Potenza and is one of the first examples of a building procedure poorly used at that stage. The main carrying structure presents the use of innovative techniques of the period with the use of three dimensional frames in armed concrete, the application of floors with lightening elements, defined by the national Norms only in 1939. The building occupies a volume of 7400 mc. with a building typology of closed court with rectangular regular plant, and in the course of the last decades underwent several dimensional and structural alterations dictated by specific functional adaptations needs. The barrack looses its original function in 1980 and becomes an abandoned building forgotten by the public consideration. The aim is the physical and social integration of a building that must be recovered from the structure point of view and valorised in the function, projecting and realising a service for the multi-ethnic communities living in town.