CULTURAL AND ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE AMONG THE PROJECT OFCONSERVATION, ENHANCEMENT AND LOCAL COMMUNITIES’ IDENTITY

Abstract

The safeguarding of cultural heritage and, specifically, architectural heritage, as an
expression of cultural identity, means the defense, as the Faro Convention argues, of human rights
and is part of the concept of democracy. Therefore, there is a need for a collective participation in
its protection and enhancement which concerns not only the governing bodies but also the
communities that identify themselves in cultural heritage (Faro Convention, 2005). Governments
have, in fact, the duty to interface with communities guaranteeing them the care of everything that
can help to create "understanding, identity, cohesion and creativity". It is evident that the extreme
difficulty of implementing this process is answered by adopting all the most suitable tools for
safeguarding the cultural good itself (Treccani, Item: Identità). The idea of protection is linked to the
awareness that cultural heritage, and the architectural one, belongs to every people and this assertion
assumes that it is not really the people, but the government is the guarantor of the people who take
in care the protection of the goods which is awarded with universal value.