La fortezza di Trento: conservazione, valorizzazione e abbandono

The demands made by all wars have always transformed cities and territories; the construction of an entrenched camp required the construction of external works, such as permanent and temporary fortifications, roads, trenches and infrastructures, but also a centre, with facilities for quarters, hospitals, production facilities, leisure facilities, public squares weapons, city walls, ditches. The centre of gravity of the fortress was almost always placed in an existing city that in a very short time had to be adapted, transformed and expanded according to military requirements. This structure is characteristic of many camp entrenchments made in Europe between 1850 and 1915. For example the Hapsburg Empire, after the third war of independence, first losing Lombardy and then Veneto, decided to create a new and modern bulwark to protect the southern border of the kingdom, placed in the middle of the valley of the Adige around the city of Trento. A fortress, which after the First World War, was abandoned, and then, in recent years, has been the subject of a careful project of conservation and enhancement, which led to the recovery of permanent and camp fortifications, roads, cableways, paths, etc. In this great project the urban military works have been forgotten, which on the contrary have been invested by functional transformations, demolitions and abandonments. You could wonder, therefore, why urban military structures have not been the subject of any conservation and enhancement works.