About project

In all the Italian and Croatian cities and towns involved in REVIVAL, there are many dismissed areas, buildings (e.g. summer camps, schools, barracks, military fortifications) and industrial complexes lying in a state of neglect and decay. Many of these realities have an architectonical and historical meaning, representing remarkable examples of industrial archaeology, rationalist and modernist architecture or various military fortifications and bunkers as well as abandoned schools built during the Austrian-Hungarian period, along the Croatian coasts or on islands. This is an almost totally lost heritage, that today must be re-discovered, revitalized and reused for multiple reasons: memory building and keeping; making the cities and towns more compact and hence more sustainable, instead of pursuing an endless territorial/urban development based on the urban sprawl; fill in the urban/territorial/social voids, caused by the presence of abandoned areas and buildings, situated often in central areas; create spaces to host temporary cultural/artistic events and hence new poles and community hubs for the attraction of creative people as well as of tourists and social life. As we speak about hundreds of outstanding testimonials located in Italy and Croatia, tackling in a smart and sustainable way, as REVIVAL will do, these challenges will allow to transform the lost cultural heritage in a leverage for a sustainable and more balanced territorial development (as required by the priority 3.1 of the ItalyCroatia cross-border programme), in which a relevant abandoned man-made heritage will play a central role.

REVIVAL will tackle the issues above through a result-oriented approach consisting of:

• Realization of small works to clean and make accessible (with sufficient safety standards for users and visitors) the buildings/fortifications of public property and in an acceptable status;
• Organization of artistic and creative events hosted in the dismissed buildings/areas concerned (made accessible through the small works mentioned above), to attract creative people and tourists as well as to raise the awareness and attention of local communities, policy-makers and potential investors on the lost heritage concerned;
• Promote a new tourism offer, joined by a common joint cross border brand and linked to a Cultural Route of the lost heritage of ‘900 in the Adriatic to attract cultural tourists;
• Search for potential private investors for wider future projects of reuse.

As the starting point is clear, the change that REVIVAL will introduce is to put at the centre of attention of regional and local communities and potential investors the lost heritage concerned and try to find for it creative and sustainable solutions. REVIVAL involves 8 project partners and will last 30 months.