Furio Fasolo per la basilica cattedrale di Sant'Agapito in Palestrina: restauri 1957-1974
In: Quaderni dell'Istituto di Storia dell'Architettura: n.s. 2019, 2020
DOI: 10.48255/1211
The restoration of Sant’Agapito Cathedral in Palestrina by Furio Fasolo (1957-1974)
In June 1944, during the Second World War, the city of Palestrina was bombed. The damage to the Cathedral’s facade was irreversible. In 1957, the architect Furio Fasolo was in charge of its restoration. His first hypothesis for the loggia’s reconstruction was denied, so he proposed its partial demolition, equally rejected; then, the demolition of the loggia was ratified. Today, fragments of the ancient masonry devices characterize the façade, scratched in a dense network of grooves; they are the result of a “liberation” intervention combined with exacerbated additions to the strict adherence to the principle of distinguishable and the use of reinforced concrete. At the beginning of the Seventies, Fasolo was also in charge of Sant’Agapito crypt’s restoration, never completed. His project was based on the static conditions of the building, which required the demolition of the crumbling modern structures of the crypt in iron beams, corroded by oxidation. The reconstruction of the roof slab was carried out a reinforced concrete framework consisting of four pillars and beams, and a brick-cement slab of about 30 cm. During the work, further new changes to the project were needed: the pillars became five, and the roof was translated into a lowered barrel vault. The desire to make the intervention distinguishable suggested the choice of exposed concrete. The exhaustion of funding dues the interruption of the restoration works, and still today the crypt shows its unfinished structure.