Postwar architecture

It was the city of Sassari that made its debut with the first 'skyscraper', built in Piazza Castello on the edge of the ancient nucleus, with a shocking intervention not much different from the action of the 'healing pickax' interrupted by the ensuing war. In the same way, the other cities of the island, Cagliari, Iglesias, Oristano, etc., were also infected by this new multi-storey type.

With regard to religious buildings, despite the measures against the air war, which in some way should have protected the monumental buildings, even in Cagliari, bombs sometimes irreparably damaged several important churches.

The problem of restoration or reconstruction was then posed, then solved differently in relation to the various situations, so much so as to reflect the generalized practice of “case-by-case” intervention, which often led to the circumvention of the principles of the Restoration Charter enshrined immediately before the world war, in the face of unforeseen and unprecedented events such as war damage.

Civil Engineering, under the auspices of the Public Works Authority, played a decisive role: interventions with new technologies, moving structures recovered from rubble to other monuments, simple restorations of structures, but not of decorations, returned only in shapes, transformations of use are some of the most frequent operations undertaken. Few churches were restored according to the criterion “where it was and how it was” (Sant'Anna, San Giuseppe), one was rebuilt in completely different forms (the Carmine), others were further demolished due to real or presumed static disasters (Santa Margherita, Santa Lucia, San Giorgio), one was transformed into a municipal auditorium (Santa Teresa).

However, at least three interventions resolved in a different way deserve special attention: the late Gothic church of San Domenico, recovered with an intelligent proposal between ancient and modern by Raffaello Fagnoni, the church of SS. MM. Giorgio and Caterina, rebuilt from scratch in a completely different part of the city, following the practice of transferring the title of old churches to new parishes, as happened for the third, Santa Lucia, which from a brotherhood church in the Marina district became the parish church of the now populous district of San Benedetto.

Update

10/9/2023 - 16:01