Messina: pratiche di riparazione e consolidamento delle sopravvivenze architettoniche dopo il terremoto del 1908.

The earthquake of december 28th, 1908 hit a territory already hardly weakened by the previous earthquake of 1783. The distribution of the built up areas had partly been set by the mid XIX century planning in the new expansion areas, while the older settlements were heterogeneous, showing themselves as a palimpsest with a progressive transformations and saturations of the available areas. The most spread housing typology consisted in linear buildings with shops at the ground floor overlooking the street, and with mezzanines above which there were the main floors and often other storeys. The Commission esta¬blished with a Royal Decree in 15.01.1909, having the task to observe the effects of the earthquake and to propose solutions to make safe both new constructions and those that had to be repaired, noticed that the buildings were made of a poor quality masonry and also that the rules of art, although described by the previous legislation, had not been followed. The archive research has allowed to single out only one project regarding the structural restructuring of a building in the historic centre according to the legislation of 1909. The research, which has also included the direct comparison of all residential buildings before the earthquake that are still today in the centre of Messina, aims to understand the approach to repairs and the strengthening practices adopted. In particular, the rule not always seems to be applied in its wholeness, and at the same time the greater attention in the case of repairs was paid to lowering the buildings' centre of gravity, obtained by pulling down the high floors, so that the total height was not greater than the width of the street on which the building overlooked. Due to speculative practices, this rule was soon ignored, or at least it became less imposing. Therefore, the basic anti-seismic safety laws of the city contained in Borzì's plan were in some way not applied.