The historical landscape of ports: From the definition of a methodology for the risk assessment to the identification of guidelines for port heritage preservation

Since the last century, the landscape of ports have been completely changed and modernized, in order to house the new and modern activities, increasingly directed towards productive, industrial and energetic functions, among the others. Nowadays, most modern port areas produce impacts on the historical and architectural heritages, which combined to their vulnerability, can lead to rapid pathological effects generating high risks in terms of damages and losses of historical, artistic and cultural values, including the abandonment of port buildings and spaces. In fact, since the end of XIX century, industrial and productive activities, on the one hand, logistic and touristic facilities, on the other hand, have settled in port areas, changing profoundly their historical and natural landscape. Innovations and technological development in the naval engineering and in the construction techniques have led port areas to renew and expand considerably with the erection of large maritime works, such as docks and piers. Whereas the morphology of the port context did not allow the construction of these enlargements, the new facilities and structures have been located in the suburb areas of the cities, changing their relationship with the city center. As a result, the displacement of these activities into new areas has produced widespread abandonment and decommissioning of existing architectural heritage. When ports maintained their original position and role, the landscape has been transformed to accommodate new ships of large size, producing significant impacts and pressures on historical heritage, in terms of material, technical, technological and functional obsolescence. Furthermore, in most of cases, ports and cities represent clusters completely separated and disconnected, being managed and developed as different systems. In recent decades, moreover, the concentration of activities, increasingly directed towards industrial and energy production, in port areas has contributed to the deterioration of environmental conditions in which there were both heritage and historic urban fabric. In addition to environmental effects, i.e. stationary ones, port activities could generate exceptional impacts, also known as major accidents: explosions, fires and chemical releases. These anthropic disasters can have severe effects on historical sites, potentially leading to their damaging and destruction. According to the above-mentioned aspects, the preservation and the enhancement of historic buildings and spaces of ports is actually critical and complex, also in terms of management and governance of the port-city system. Thus, the rehabilitation and enhancement of historical port areas, as well as the definition of integrated models of development for urban areas and ports, represent important challenges, as well as opportunities, for coastal cities. In this context, the PhD thesis aims to carry out a methodology for the identification of the risks - in terms of losses of material, artistic, cultural values - affecting the historical heritage of ports, in order to identify guidelines and strategies for its preservation and enhancement, as well as for the integration of the port-city system. Firstly, in the thesis, the architectural heritage of the most significant Mediterranean port cities is analyzed, in order to build a knowledge framework for the classification and qualification of maritime and port heritage, and for the realization of the dynamics of the port transformation over the centuries. Particularly, the morphological and historical evolution of ports in the Mare Nostrum context is discussed and described in Chapter 1, identifying the relationship between port and city in different historical period and geographical areas, as well as their dimension, number and shape of the basins, functions and morphology. In addition to this, specific categories of historical heritage are identified, focusing on the architectural, materials and functional characteristics. Secondly, a methodology for the identification and estimation of those isks, which can affect historical heritages in ports is presented and described. The proposed method aims to evaluate risk, through the assessment of the vulnerability of heritages of ports and of the main hazards produced by port activities. Chapter 3 of the thesis, starting from a bibliographic review of the main definition and methods, proposed a simplified methodology for assessing the vulnerability of cultural assets in ports, considered as sum of three main contributes: material vulnerability, and functional and cultural one. The assessment is provided through specific forms, defined for each specific category of port assets, as shown in the section Annexes of the thesis. Subsequently in Chapters 4 and 5, the concept of hazard, i.e. impacts of port activities on historical heritages, is explained and analyzed proposing methods for its assessment. The hazard is considered in two main typologies: stationary and exceptional ones. The stationary impact refers to the environmental consequences, which are continuously produced by port activities, such as emission to air, water and soil. The main effects of these impacts on heritage are described in order to provide a method for their estimation. They concern mostly impacts on construction materials, on use and function and on landscaping values. The exceptional impacts, instead, are those ones potentially produced by the occurrence of the so-called major accidents: mainly explosions and fires, produced by hazardous substances in ships collision, storage and loading/unloading operations in ports. A methodology for the estimation of the frequency of those accidents, as well as of the evaluation of the consequences on historical sites, is described, mostly focusing on explosions. The heritage classification and the definition of a methodology for risk assessment aims to identify specific guidelines for an integrated development of the port-city system, with particular attention to the preservation and enhancement of historical sites, and the mitigation of risks affecting them in ports. Starting from a historical review of the main intervention in ports since the last century, some strategies for heritage preservation and port-city system sustainable development are explained. The main goals of the guidelines are preservation, safeguard, enhancement, dissemination of values, territorial redevelopment, risk reduction and sustainable governance. Finally, the research methodology is applied to a given case, the port of Brindisi located in Apulia, South-East of Italy. The case of study is particularly interesting because the industrial, mercantile, commercial and logistic activities are very close and intersected to the cultural and historical heritages of the port. Once described the port history, morphology and characteristics, a vulnerability assessment of port assets is carried out revealing that the majority of them are certainly compromised. Comparing this with the assessment of stationary and exceptional impacts, it points out that there are some historical assets of Brindisi which are actually seriously threatened. In the view of a risk mitigation and sustainable development of the Apulian port-city, a strategic scenario is proposed: the constitution of a "Historical Park of the Port of Brindisi". A structured strategy of intervention is defined: first of all, the redevelopment of port areas, as well as the risk reduction, should be a priority for the city in order to preserve historical properties and values; secondly, a port-city governance must be organized for defining the main future sustainable goals of the territorial system, considering cultural and historical landscape preservation and enhancement as challenge and opportunity.