Forte Avalos: tra memoria e oblio, un disegno per ricordare

Abstract

In 16th century Sicily, in order to deal with the incursions of the Turks and Barbary, the Spanish viceroy government put in place the construction of some maritime forts in order to defend the coasts of the island. Among these, in the port city of Augusta, Avalos fort was built around 1570, a small modern fortification characterized by the particular semicircular floor plan, capable of having a wide radius of action. Various and extensive studies have been conducted on the events and historical representations of the fort also in relation to the fortified maritime system of the Sicilian coasts. However, these studies have not always been related to the actual state of the property, which, rising in the middle of the military zone and on an islet, is not easy to reach, much less to measure. With the help of modern and sophisticated tools, in similar cases, many difficulties can be overcome. In this specific case, the survey was carried out by means of the total station, from which a state of severe deterioration emerged with serious structural failures. The delays in the consolidation and restoration of the asset risk leading to destruction, through this work it is therefore proposed to leave at least a trace of an architectural asset that is physically disappearing, making use of the connection between various techniques and resources in view of the construction of a memory that has a visual, metric and historical consistency