Fai turns 50, with 5 new openings

SortBoccia fifty years ago the FAI, from the vision outside the ordinary of a handful of private individuals, Four citizens who put themselves in the head to support the institutions in taking care and value to our rich cultural heritage. And they have the courage to launch into this feat with an unpublished formula in Italy, On the lines of the British National Trust: Keep the country beautiful, and do it for everyone.

A woman at the birth of FAI

There is a woman, tumultuous and determined, At the helm of that vision, Giulia Maria Crespi. The only heir of the illustrious Lombard cotton dynasty, as well as owner of Corriere della Seraencouraged by her friend Elena Croce, daughter of Benedetto, On April 28, 1975, the act with which the Italian Environment Fund. With her there are friends Renato Bazzoni, Alberto Predieri and Franco Russoli.

The suggestive rocky bay of Cala Junco, on the island of Panarea, given in donation in 1977, is the first that Fai receives; The Torba monastery, Lombard medieval complex set in the Varese woods and Donato, the same year, by Maria Giulia Crespi, it is the first good that the do restores And today it is part of an archaeological park of UNESCO World Heritage Site. What was not even imaginable in 1975 was accomplished in precious goals: Today the Italian Environment Fund has more than 300 employees, of which, however, 75 percent is a woman, and 300 thousand are the members. It has a heritage of 72 extraordinary goods, inherited and in donation (they are more donors of the donors) or in management, of which 56 open to the public and visited last year by over one million and 100 thousand people.

The precious assets of the FAI

These are historic villas, castles and abbeys, coastal and salt areas, parks and woods, as well as smaller goods but with an intense identity power for the communities. “On that intuition of ’75, Fai has built over time a volume of deeds that has no equal, also for its value of extreme concreteness and operation. After fifty years of commitment, it continues to grow for the reason that something was created of which there was a deep need»Explains Daniela Bruno, FAI cultural director who takes care of 30 thousand works of art and objects, furniture, tapestries, musical instruments and 40 thousand books daily.

«Perhaps what we like to say most, in the fiftieth year of life, is that the more we grow, the more the application is growing, In this country where there is a lot to do and where we would never want to be the only ones. The brilliant idea of ​​the founders was make yourself available to a public function, a civil mission Which today would not be effective if it could not count on the voluntarist effort of the citizens, of those 16 thousand volunteers (69 percent women, editor’s note) who, throughout Italy, give fundamental contributions “adds the manager.

In the sign of sustainability

Title half a century of care of Italian beauty means crossing the great changes crossed by the country, adapting the management models, which have become increasingly attentive to environmental sustainability. In 2015 the Sustainable Heritage Project was born, With the aim of reducing CO2 emissions by 2030 by 20 percent through the efficiency of buildings. Three years later, here is the water pactwith which FAI, involving farmers, businesses, technicians, managers of networks and consortia, has presented proposals aimed at his savings, recovery and reuse. Starting from its historical goods, which would seem screeching kings with environmental sustainability solutions. «At Masino Castle, on the Morenica barrier of the Serra d’Ivrea, We are using the most modern technologies to recover the ancient underground cisterns And to restore the entire water collection system to be used to water the gardens “explains Paola Candiani, responsible for the restoration and conservation of FAI.

“At Villa Necchi Campiglio, in the heart of Milan, designed in the early 1930s by Piero Portaluppi, we have adopted solutions that allow you to recover the first aquiferous water: It is taken from a well about sixty meters deep, where it is not drinkable. This water is used to irrigate the vegetable garden and to fill the swimming pool, as well as for the jacks and for the heating and conditioning system, which makes use of geothermal heat pumps, from which the water is reimed in aquifer “explains Candiani, who in 26 years of work has experienced the many times of the FAI. “When I started we had a construction site open a year. Today the open construction sites are a hundred: they range from the restoration of the great good to the remake of a roof. Much of our commitment is concentrated on conservation, because it is not enough for an asset to restore: once open to the public it must be maintained in optimal conditions. We invest at the opening of new assets what we invest in extraordinary maintenance of those already open ».

In 2003 he was launched The places of the heart, In collaboration with Intesa San Paolo, to save places particularly loved by Italians. Every year equal anyone can vote for a place that wants to recover, keep, make known: the first three classifieds obtain an economic contribution for a project agreed with FAI. Each year, however, a announcement is opened to which they can apply, presenting a project, all the places that have obtained at least 2500 votes the year before. “2012 was the boom: the Italians expressed almost a million votes,” says Federica Armiraglio, head of the office content large projects.

There are 39,500, so far, the voted places, 6,508 the municipalities involved, 163 projects supported in 20 regions, 1,500 spontaneous committees cOver the years, votes have collected for this survey from below that mobilizes, together, citizenship and institutions and that they managed to remove from the shade and put in custody often ignored places, in the internal areas of the country, perhaps in the process of depopulation. «The strength of the project lies in its ability to return a sense of community and significantly impact on the territories. We know how boundless the Italian heritage is and how limited the resources available are, so in the choice of programs to be supported we favor those who have cards to affect the areas and communities in a stronger way “concludes Armiraglio, announcing the next presentation of the project to the religious complex of San Michele, which stands in Torre de’busi, in the San Martino Valley, between Bergamo and Lecco. Reachable only on foot, after a long abandonment the guided tours began and The places of the heart He supported the restoration of a cycle of fifteenth -century frescoes with the depictions of capital sins.

The challenges of the future

«We have several challenges in front. One of these is to spread Fai in the city where he has many members and volunteers, but not assets where to make his business known. I think of Rome, Bologna, Naples, Palermo »concludes Daniela Bruno. And then: “All 72 Places of Fai are not only monuments, but also landscapesdimensions where the component of history lives with that of nature. And this launches a very peculiar challenge, since for ten years now the Italian territory has been threatened, in a clear and clear way, by the environmental crisis. This is a new difficulty for us who, in the case of landslides, floods or droughts, must be faced with new commitments and, on the budget level, new expenditure items to guarantee the same protection of our cultural heritage generated in these first fifty years “.

DIY INAUGURATIONS IN THE AGENDA

From Liguria to Sicily, this is where to see The five new treasures do.

To celebrate fifty years, Fai will inaugurate five new goods to the public. In mid -April he reveals himself Podere Lovara, in Punta Mesco, in the Cinque Terre National Park, Rural complex embraced by vineyards, olive groves and vegetable gardens that can only be reached on foot along the path, with sea view, which connects Levanto to Monterosso. Villa Rezzola, in Lerici follows in Maywhose English garden, probably the most beautiful in the Levante, houses exotic plants. In July, it’s up to Casino Molloa seventeenth -century hunting casino on the edge of the Giants of the Giants of Fallistra, in the Sila National Park: an immersion in the rural landscape of the South.

TO Septemberthe appointment is a Monte Fontana Secca and with De Spadaròta mountain pasture with a hut at 1,461 meters on the Grappa massif, in the municipality of Setteville (Belluno), in which they will return to grazing the burral cows, a casera will produce traditional cheeses and a didactic space will teach mountain pastoralism. He closes the celebrations, in November, in the Valley of the Temples of Agrigento, Montana Caserural buildings on the edge of one of the rock rockers in which the Kolymbethra garden thrives, already do well.

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