Le dimore dell'Uomo

Three regions come together in the area under study: to the south, Ogliastra with Baunei and Urzulei; in the center, the Nuorese region with Oliena; to the north, Baronia with Dorgali. Three lifestyles converge in this territory; three lifestyles produced by three cultures that however don't cancel the one in the other. This is a territory which, from a high plain at an elevation of about 1000 meters, slopes down rapidly in a little over 20 kilometers to the sea. This portion of the island - delimited to the east by the Gulf of Orosei, to the south and south-west by the Eastern Sardinian road, to the west by Supramonte and to the north by the Nuoro-Orosei road - is sparsely inhabited and has remained essentially unchanged in over a century. The structure of Sardinian mountain settlements, despite recent changes, has remained traditional: a concentration of compact villages with a scarce presence of houses in the countryside. Newer houses, called a palattu, tend to have a more vertical development than the older houses, that is compared to elemental houses with few or no annex constructions. Also in this regard the mountain villages are not very dissimilar to the settlements in the hills or on the plain where grain-growing is a tradition and where large farmhouses characterize the villages, especially in the southern part of the island. In general, up until recently the towns, including the larger ones, were clearly divided in their urban structure into a small upper class, who were the principal land and livestock owners, and a lower working class that included shepherds and farmers, who were more or less dependent on the upper class. Essentially, the residential construction patrimony, which is made up of hundreds of houses that can still today be considered as part of the historical and traditional architecture, is an extraordinary component of the collective memory and identity for the local communities and territory. As happens with increasing frequency, consciousness of the value of the natural and constructed environment is attained when there is the risk of losing that patrimony, which, for its nature, is non-reproducible. Traditional houses deserve to be included in this idea of patrimony, and in order to avoid speaking about them in the past tense it is necessary that their protection becomes part of the collective idea in the very short term. Thus, this work aims to recognize and protect those particular characteristics which are difficult to replicate and that can be identified as pre-existing environmental qualities through recovery of handicrafts, lifestyles and culture which are direct expressions of them.