“Restauro” del “Moderno”: un ossimoro concettuale divenuto procedurale. La DOcumentazione del modernismo a Messina fra 1930 e 1965.

The research about the expression of Modernism in Messina has been undertaken retracing the criteria widely adopted by the association DOCOMOMO (DOcumentation and COnservation of buildings, sites and neighborhoods of the MOdern MOvement), which recognises the unavoidable need to document and preserve the 20th century architecture, from the Modern Movement to the subsequent stylistic tendencies, however starting from a "revolution" of lexicon paradigms in relation to the tradition. This has to be highlighted for Messina, fully re-built after the earthquake of 1908 since the 1920s and then completed/repaired after the mid-1940s. The first phase concerned the critical DOcumentation to identify the features that made the buildings of Mazzoni, Libera, Autore, Rovigo, Pantano, Samonà, Calandra from the coeval works of Piacentini, Bazzani, Puglisi Allegra, Zanca, Peressutti distinguishable. In a related paper, a theoretical and operative study on the topic of COnservation was undertaken, verifying all legislative methods about protective restrictions for Modern architecture, the attitudes adopted in Messina and the consequent approaches to protection interventions1 .