Relazioni tra Beni Culturali e Infrastrutture. Analisi e mappatura per la valorizzazione dei territori intermedi tra Torino e Milano

The current research aims at investigating how to promote better relationships between infrastructure and cultural heritage, with a more general objective to improve new ways to access and effectively use the places that are located in the surrounding landscape of infrastructure. The main goal of research is a visual representation methodology that is able to show, at a territorial scale, how cultural heritage and landscapes can be connected to main infrastructural nodes and to the cities, in order to enhance the accessibility of these places for tourists and local inhabitants. In the first part of the research general issues related to the state of art and to three different international case studies (The New Water Defence Line – Netherlands, The Emscher Park – Germany, and The French Motorways - France) have been analyzed with the aim to understand how other Countries have faced with the same problems. The analysis of the case studies allows a better understanding of the research problem, but also a broader comparison with other territorial contexts. The second part of the thesis deals with methodological aspects which are applied to a real case study that has been identified into the territories in-between Turin and Milan, that are crossed by an important infrastructural bundle. Entering more in detail, the research tries to combine a top-down approach, based on GIS density analysis, with a bottom-up approach, based on GPS survey technique. Visual mapping techniques show the importance to make new cartographic representations in order to visualize specific phenomena related to cultural heritage distribution and localization. The density maps represent such particular distribution and configuration of cultural heritage points, showing in a very effective way, which areas could be selected to apply new valorization strategies. In the second part , there is also a dissertation on GPS tracking technologies as new tools to track, to record and to map new landscape structures, such as cultural routes, that can be used to give value to the territories in-between Turin and Milan. Different maps and schemes show the outcomes related to the different approaches, developed at local and territorial level. The research outcomes can be divided into two parts. The first one deals with infrastructural nodes, heritage areas and cultural routes, as new territorial elements, which can contribute to the valorization of intermediate territories. The second part concerns with methodological aspects related to the integration of GIS and GPS techniques, as new platform of knowledge to support spatial planning strategies, in the field of cultural heritage valorization.