Demolishing and preserving

As dawn broke on May 7, the people of Friuli were confronted with a catastrophic scene: unsafe buildings, gutted houses, and streets littered with rubble. Areas at risk of collapse were cordoned off. Signs were posted that left no room for doubt: «It is strictly forbidden to approach or enter. Anyone who approaches or enters does so at their own risk and under their own responsibility ».

In this situation, municipal engineers gave orders to demolish buildings that raised safety hazards and appeared beyond repair. In Artegna, the day after the earthquake, civil engineering personnel began marking buildings to bedemolished with the letter “D”. Of the 971 houses surveyed before the earthquake, 462 were razed to the ground, despite resistance from the owners. To no avail, some of them wrote «not yet» on the walls of the houses earmarked for demolition, while others simply left a sign indicating their new address and asking the workers to notify them before proceeding. This method was used in almost all disaster-stricken towns. In Cavasso Nuovo, for example, 244 buildings were demolished because they were damaged beyond repair due to cracks in their structures, while the mayor of Cavazzo Carnico signed 110 demolition orders. Gniva, a hamlet of Resia, is a tragic example of this, where only six of the 75 existing houses were spared, and even the 18th-century church was levelled to the ground.

Friuli is caught between a desire to rebuild and a need to eliminate unsafe structures. Demolition is necessary even beyond the earthquake. This was the headline of the opening article in the «Messaggero Veneto» on June 3 1976. The article was accompanied by a sequence of four photographs showing the demolition of the north wing of the new hospital complex in Gemona by the bomb squad of the Engineers Regiment using 78 kilograms of TNT, six years after the first stone was laid. On June 15, the same newspaper ran the headline: Demolition completed before thinking about houses, reporting on what was happening in Trasaghis, where crowds of workers wearing helmets and dust masks prevented anyone from accessing their homes to recover what they could. Demolition was carried out to prevent further collapses and ensure safe urban spaces for survivors. This decision was prompted by the fact that, technically, severely damaged buildings were not considered repairable at the time.

Even the Friulians who had emigrated abroad and decided to return to the Region were taken by surprise by the demolition works. On June 17, the «Messaggero Veneto» newspaper published an article titled Shreds of houses and many memories, recounting the experience of Davide Stefanutti. Having returned to Interneppo after forty-two years abroad, he received a demolition order. His only response was: «A small kitchen and two rooms would be enough for me, maybe just one».

A week after the earthquake, Ermanno Rigutto, the Regional Councillor for Public Works, provided the first assessment of the emergency management phase. He described the assistance that regional officials could provide to Municipalities for demolition work. Having noted that more than 300 operations had already been carried out, including demolition, shoring up and road restoration, he stated that the Government of Friuli had decided to grant Municipalities broad discretion over reconstruction work, subject to final approval of detailed subdivision plans. He then reported that a study group was already working on the reconstruction plans and announced that a specific bill was being prepared for the restoration of historic centres and the implementation of the relevant construction works.

In several Municipalities, there was a growing trend to favour demolition in order to «wipe the slate clean» of damaged and dangerous buildings, allowing at least some of the population to return home. The massive presence of Fire Brigade teams in the towns was one factor that contributed to this idea. Many people were therefore convinced that demolition was essential for rapid reconstruction, a belief that would soon be shattered by the events of September 15.

However, finding accommodation, even temporary, took time. Twelve days after the earthquake, Osoppo was littered with rubble, and as Mario Passi wrote in the newspaper «L'Unità», the ground-floor windows were plastered with reports on the safety inspections carried out on homes throughout the Municipality. «Street by street, house number by house number, the word “uninhabitable” appears dozens of times on the sheets for Via Rivoli and Via Peschiera, while “inhabitable” prevails in Via Matteotti and Via Buia. In the others, the situation is more or less split between the two options». A few days earlier, the same journalist had written that in ancient villages and towns steeped in history and artistic heritage such as Gemona, Tarcento, Colloredo, Venzone, Artegna and San Daniele, the need to act quickly was compounded by the requirement to save as much of the urban landscape and historic buildings as possible: «To restore the image of Friuli that nobody would want to lose forever».

On June 3 1976, the mayor of Tarcento, Enzo Maria Gioffrè, told Ciro Migliore, a journalist for the «Messaggero Veneto» newspaper, that, according to initial estimates, about 70 per cent of the buildings had to be demolished: less than a month after the earthquake, he had already signed 350 demolition orders. «We have an obligation,» he explained, «to demolish unsafe buildings facing public roads that endanger citizens.» The demolition plan was completed in 1978 by his successor, Giancarlo Cruder, who signed an additional 800 orders.

However, a different awareness gradually began to spread: anything that could be reactivated or recovered without demolishing and rebuilding from the ground up was preserved because this made it possible to envisage the return of at least some of the population to their homes. In Gemona, the Superintendency ordered the closure of the historic centre and prohibited any demolition, even with armed surveillance. On May 16, an engineering unit specialising in demolitions from Germany was deployed, working alongside the Fire Brigade to clear the streets, stabilise buildings and carry out targeted demolitions limited exclusively to structures at high risk of collapse.

Concerned about the spread of activities which were endangering the artistic heritage, on June 3, the mayors, parish priests and cultural authorities of Venzone, Gemona, Artegna, Montenars and Magnano issued a plea to the Italian Minister for Cultural Heritage, Mario Pedini. They challenged the measures taken by the newly established “Special Office” for coordination of the Ministry, which had been unable to prevent «very serious» demolitions due to a lack of personnel on site. As a result, valuable remains and artefacts had to be recovered from landfill sites. Among the signatories was the mayor of Venzone, who contributed to the philological reconstruction of the historic town, including its 14th-century cathedral and bell tower, which had been designated a national monument in 1965. Gemona and Venzone are historic towns that were almost completely destroyed between May and September 1976, and they represent two particular cases that require further consideration.

Regional legislators also recognised the importance of protecting the building heritage of small rural villages, and enacted legislation to this effect. Article 8 of Regional Law No. 63 dated December 23 1977, relating to post-earthquake reconstruction, established procedures for revising the urban planning instrument in force. It also set out criteria and objectives, as well as providing detailed plans for urban areas that had been severely damaged by the earthquake.