Architecture and landscape. Studies for preservation and enhancement of the mills’ valley in Gragnano (Na)

The main protagonist of Gragnano city’s history is the mill valley, a thin depression between Lattari Mountains, and Vernotico river, crossed by a medieval amalfitan mule truck. The extremely simple architecture of the mills, has been well adapted and integrated within the complex morphology of the valley. At first used for silk production, they have been after used to grind grain, giving the start to the development of the future middle 800 well known “city of pasta”. The valley of mills represent a complex system made up by the productive character, natural environment and infrastructure, related into virtuous mix which led itself development, but meanwhile took serious problems of defining those characters themselves for preservation and development. Starting from the reconstruction of the mills’ network present into Gragnano’s territory related both to morphologic and anthropic aspects, we made a cataloguing and census of the preindustrial architectural heritage based on the 1784 Chiroga cartography, which shows precisely us the system of aqueducts and mills of the time. This contribution wants to define a recovering and enhancement program for the analysed buildings throughout the knowledge of their constructive and functional features and the relationship with the environmental and cultural context. The valley’s mills framework, with the old aqueduct and infrastructure give us the opportunity to create a linear park which goal is to promote cultural and research activities for the community into the single buildings as an instrument to reappropriate of our cultural heritage by reason of consciousness discover of our natural, cultural and productive resources undertaken in past just with water strength.