THE MODERN RUIN. SOME REFLECTIONS ABOUT THE MONUMENT GABRIELE D’ANNUNZIO

It is difficult to accept the reduction to ruins and the abandonment of the artworks considered cor-nerstones of 20th-century architecture. The transformations, additions or subtractions of various types that have disfigured, but not annihilated, the traditional architectural heritage of Italian cities, as well as European ones, are poorly combined with the absoluteness of the modern creative gesture, which does not accept the passing of time. The risk is to consider the life cycle of the works still open and therefore susceptible to modifications and tran-sformations deemed acceptable, such as in the case of the theater-monument dedicated to Gabriele D’Annunzio in his hometown, which story seems to well summarize the issues related to the restoration of modern architecture. This contribution reconstructs, on a philological basis, the long steps that led to the creation of the monument to D’Annunzio in the fifties: a very ambitious project that is still not fully completed today ending up being not recognized by citizens and institutions.