Craftsmanship merchandise for cultural heritage. Back home with a piece of history, territory and design

Cultural heritage is a multidimensional value category that includes not only historic, artistic and architectural excellences but also material culture, the excellent skills of local craftsmanship. The aim of the work is to investigate how design and crafts, working together, can help to enhance the value of the territorial cultural heritage: not only by redefining/updating the expressive products languages, but also creating new channels of distribution. The focus is a design research + didactic operation, dedicated to promote both the circuit of local Royal Residences and the material culture of the territory, through the creation of a museum merchandising collection. Research team has worked with the aim to promote historical excellences with new merchandising craft products developed by design students and local craftmen. The operation involved cultural heritage and crafts experts invited in several seminars and lessons, 150 tutored university students and 30 crafts firms identified by a territorial Consortium.