Dal tangibile all'intangibile e ritorno?: Per ripensare il significato della materia

The development from the monument to the «material evidence of civilization» brought a meaningful expansion in the field of preservation. The introduction of the idea of Intangible Heritage, though further enlarging the cultural and geographical scope, allowed a certain distancing from the matter of architecture. The paper is a reflection on the reasons to make up for the link to the material aspects, rethinking their – concep-tual and physical, as well as figurative and narrative - meanings and envisaging a synthesis, blending tangible and intangible as a physiological step in architectural heritage preservation. The idea of a return doesn’t prelude so much a retrospective approach as the restatement of some concepts – like material authenticity - around which the debate revolved throughout time, as well as of some instruments – like stratigraphy – that provides a deep exploration of the matter of architecture, possibly revising their implementa-tion following the evolution of the present cultural issues.