Itinerari identitari e di valorizzazione dei sistemi di fortificazioni tra memoria storica, empowerment e processi di branding: una rilettura ex post del caso Kostrzyn in Polonia (Kustrin)

In 2014 the FORTE CULTURA network was born, known as “European Fortress Tourism and Fortress Marketing Network e.V.”, a non-governmental organization for the cultural, touristic, social and economic valorization of the cultural heritage of fortresses in the community. The 10 years since its establishment are an opportunity to reflect on the state of the art and the developments of the management models of these complex systems, as well as on the innovative trajectories linked to sustainable “new tourism” processes. The valorization highlights the need to involve local communities in raising awareness between memory and the creation of new identities and in developing branding processes. Starting from the rich scientific debate, the paper aims to reread from the point of view of the discipline of economic valorization the case of the fortified city of Kostrzyn in Poland (Central Europe 2007-2013): a paradigmatic case, as it is a nodal place of a system that is not only military, but also infrastructural and civic and administrative management of the territory, which, following the Second World War, became a central element in the division of borders between States and the object of a radical metamorphosis both in its physical aspects and in its intangible and immaterial ones. A disciplinary aspect is the development of shared and specific evaluation tools for each decision-making phase, focused on identifying the intangible elements and recognizing the impacts they can create on the territory. The enhancement proposals not only define the interventions from a technical point of view (formal and construction solutions), but they also put into action a planning necessary to experiment with measures, actions and strategies capable of inducing potential implementing bodies to intervene in a coordinated manner and to respond to unsatisfied needs in terms of forecasting and quantification of real and potential demands and profiling of the target audiences, who have drastically changed their cultural consumption preferences.