Seaside holiday camps in Italian Rationalism: architecture and healthcare through preservation and adaptive reuse

This paper presents the first outcomes of research carried out by Università Iuav di Venezia dedicated to the preservation of modern healthcare architecture. The aim of the study is to outline innovative adaptive-reuse strategies for the seaside holiday camps built in Italy in the first half of 20th century. During the fascist regime, almost 4,000 camps were built within 15 years, allowing 700,000 children to benefit from the seaside and mountains in the summer. Most of these buildings were abandoned in the 1980s and 90s, as they were considered obsolete and unsuitable for contemporary functional and programmatic requirements. Nonetheless, these ‘health machines’ represent a symbol of architectural experimentation and are a significant example of design and distributive principles contamination. Some buildings were demolished. Others, considered 20th century ‘icons’, have been conserved or transformed through questionable refurbishments. A third group of buildings remain abandoned to this day. Beginning with the study of unpublished archival documentation, this research claims a social, cultural, and economically sustainable future for those abandoned landmarks in the contemporary Italian seaside skyline. In order to save these sites from demolition, the research considers practical approaches to enable their use in the contemporary context, preserving them from material degradation without renouncing their ‘documentary potential’, according to the discipline of conservation.