Resumen de Architectural and constructive characteristics of vernacular settlements insouthern Italy: the Esaro’s valley and the popular identity of some exemplary cases

Brunella Canonaco, Federica Castiglione

• The paper proposes the analysis of a significant portion of the territory of southern Italy and, more pre-cisely, that in Calabria within the Esaro river valley, characterized by a wide hilly area that hosts numeroussmall ancient centres. The analysed territory, which for centuries has had a strong agricultural and pasto-ral vocation, presents a varied range of case studies typical of popular identity and vernacular culture butdifferent in morphologies, construction techniques, materials and types. Through a comparative reading ofsome examples, therefore, the paper aims to highlight the architectural and construction features typicalof the local architecture, underlining their spontaneous and identity character. Not only sporadic and iso-lated episodes are taken into consideration, but also entire portions of the inhabited area, which in structureand building fabric reflect the traditional life of the past. The territory’s variety allows us to analyse dif-ferent types of architecture through which the vernacular culture is manifested. In addition to the mostvaluable examples such as farms, country houses, farmhouses, in fact, there are also examples of moremodest architecture (ovens, stables, oil mills, mills, clay buildings) that express, even more, traditional andpopularaspects. The study, therefore, through the analysis of the formal, functional and constructive char-acteristics, has made it possible to define variants and invariants of an architectural heritage with a strongidentity value to protect and preserve.