Awaiting reconstruction: the time of the project

The seismic event, and catastrophic ones in general, determine essential consequences on the body of the city and the built fabric. The wait for reconstruction brings the built environment into a temporal limbo, between the wounds and collapses of a fabric that has been compromised and the hopes and visions of a place which will return to be alive and safe. Historical centres are a particularly indicative context from this perspective, as they often combine elements of a material history stratified over time with profound values and memorial elements. The post-disaster reconstruction sees a complex regulatory framework and varied strategies depending on cultural and political instances at the urban and territorial scale. What responses are generated following seismic events in those spaces of time that, although they constitute temporary phases by statute, have been historically transformed into long-lasting phenomena? Trying to answer this complex question, it emerges how the temporal factor produces an impact on the historical city, in its continuity as an aggregative, territorial and landscape phenomenon.