Una Scuola nella scuola: intrecci di saperi e di esperienze nella Scuola di specializzazione

A School within the School: Interweavings of Knowledges and Experiences in the School of Specialization. Created in 1989, the School of Specialization in History, Analysis and Evaluation of Architectural and Landscape Heritage represented a distinctive form of third-level education, parallel to the PhD but oriented toward the advanced training of heritage professionals. Promoted by Vera Comoli, the School responded to national debates on the formation of specialists for the conservation and management of cultural and environmental heritage, while developing a markedly Turin-based identity. Unlike other Italian schools, centred on restoration of monuments, the course gave particular relevance to history, analysis, evaluation, landscape, and field-based interdisciplinary work. The chapter reconstructs its institutional origins, disciplinary framework, teaching structure, and intellectual ambitions, highlighting the role of archives, laboratories, libraries, and workshops as places where knowledge was collectively produced. The School emerges as a “school within the school”: a space in which restoration, architectural and urban history, materials technology, planning, representation and landscape design converged around the construction and communication of knowledge for heritage conservation.