Le chiese della ricostruzione come fulcro identitario del quartiere: caratteri urbanistici e architettonici di due chiese post-conciliari della Sicilia occidentale

Abstract

The period that followed the Second World War marked a turning point for the building of our country. The compelling need, the desire to rebuild what had been destroyed and the desire to build structures using the techniques of contemporary manufacturing meant that the fifties and sixties were significant, also with regard to housing production, for the history of our country, from the point of view of both architectural and technical - constructive. The use of reinforced concrete, although already quite widespread before the war, he found the greatest statement both in the building residential use that in the sperimentation of large structures. The church buildings that were built in those years had to respond to a renewal which must involved form and structure and meaning, with the advent of Vatican II and the first cultural initiatives on the subject as the "First Congress on Architecture Sacred" of 1955. Many of them were built in the districts of affordable housing and popular, even assuming a central role in terms of social and urban development within communities often quite isolated from the city center. The analysis of some buildings constructed in western Sicily, through the examination of archival documents and submitted projects (approved and unapproved), represents an interesting opportunity to study from many points of view: urban, because of the importance of the position choice for the building; social, for the role of the building itself; technical-constructive because of the types and the necessary solutions to a building called upon to perform a unique function.