The Royal Citadel of Messina. Hypothesis of architectural restoration for the conservation and use

Abstract

[EN] The hypothesis of architectural restoration wants to ensure the conservation and the use of the Royal Citadel through a conscious reinterpretation of the work and a cautious operation of image reintegration. The Royal Citadel of Messina, wanted by the King of Spain Charles II of Habsburg, was designed and built, at the end of the XVII century, by the military engineer Carlos de Grunenbergh. It is a "start fort" located at the entrance of its natural Sickle port, that is a strategic place for controlling the Strait of Messina, the port and especially the people living here. The project is neither retrospective or imitative of the past forms, nor free from the constraints and guidelines resulting from the historical-critical understanding, but conducted with conceptual rigor and with the specific aim of transmitting the monument to the future in the best possible conditions, even with the assignment of a new function.