“Restauro” del “Moderno”: un ossimoro concettuale divenuto procedurale. La COnservazione del modernismo a Messina dal 1945 a oggi.

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, then completed/repaired after the mid-1940s, and “restored” from the 1980s. After a critical DOcumention phase, to identify the features that made distinguishable the buildings of the “modern” designers from the coeval works of the traditionalist ones, we faced a theoretical and operative study on the topic of COnservation, verifying legislative modalities about protective restrictions for Modern architecture, attitudes adopted in Messina and consequent approaches to protection interventions with the aim of determining the state of cultural progress on this theme and what should be done for the lacks.