LA RAPPRESENTAZIONE DELL'IDENTITA' LOCALE. DISTRETTI CULTURALI, OSSERVATORI, PERCORSI

Science, culture, economy: the interconnections between these elements represent the challenge of the XXIst century to protect the landscape by making it an engine for the economic development. Within this approach, and following the European Landscape Convention and the Urbani Codex, is the creation of the "Cultural Districts", conceived as a organization of actions, offices and services for the protection, conservation and enhancement of cultural heritage, aimed at the education, growth and involvement of citizens as well as for the development of local economies. They actively promote a development of cultural tourism and sustainable development, and they stimulate entrepreneurial innovation thereby respecting vocations and places’ history. An operational tool aimed at combining science, culture and economy is the “Landscape Observatory”: it conceives the permanent departure from the idea of the landscape as an one-way tool in favor of a multidisciplinary, historical, cultural, environmental as well as economical approach. Within this concept of knowledge crucial is the role of Representation. The creation of "Cultural thematic Routes" represents a successful response to the request for economic stimulus; it also sets the overcoming of the philosophical concept of the nowadays outdated Open Air Museums, assembled buildings, uprooted from their original sites and reassembled in fictional contexts. These paths tell the experience of a community through the help of teaching aids that develop contents not easily understandable: even the design of paths themselves contemplates in the foreground the role of Representation. The aim of this paper is to analyze all the above mentioned innovative ways to communicate and develop cultural identities.