Vernacular farm buildings in landscape planning: a typological analysis in a southern Italian region

Farm buildings play a central role in the environmental characteristics of agricultural land. Over the centuries they have accompanied the development of the agricultural activities of man who has thereby been able to breed cattle, to grow and yield crops, and to store, transform and process agricultural products in a functional and efficient way. Farm buildings have allowed man to work in intensive conditions unaffected by the external climate. On the other hand, constructions built by farmers marked their territory, influencing and steering the spontaneous development of nature while leading to production that enabled man to get food. In the present paper, a typological analysis of farm buildings was conducted with reference to the Basilicata region, a southern Italian region rich in a history and culture connected with its traditional agricultural vocation, where rural houses still remain as witnesses to the social and cultural changes that have taken place over the years. Vernacular farm buildings, synthesizing in their architectural expression the culture, traditions and ways of life of generations of rural populations, were identified, analyzed and typologically classified all over the regional land. The results showed that many of the vernacular farm buildings visited are now abandoned; the technical survey often showed a situation of structural and functional degradation that makes their restoration difficult and expensive. Possible ways of reuse, making their recovery more economically profitable are, therefore, analyzed and discussed.