Talking of the territory means the recovery of a symbolic heritage which sites and structures give us back with their identity long sedimented in the historical context. Therefore, the local dimension is enriched with meaning and, for this reason, we are allowed to give a guidance to our socially directed action. Every cultural contribute becomes subject par excellence which is able to communicate values and experience relating the origins of the territory itself.
An example for all is the one we want to talk about: the Molino Scodellino, located in the province of Ravenna and characterized as architecture of public nature, dated around 1390. Lately, as Rosanna Pasi, President of Friends Molino Scodellino, and Giovanni Morini, Councillor for Culture of the Municipality of Castel Bolognese, stated, it was concerned with structural interventions, which have allowed us to bring it back to its original function and considering it as a strongly identity building.
Therefore, we get lost in this story at the crossroads of history and stories, an evocative narration which lets us recognize in this place many stratifications of different times that coincide and combine together. Therefore, we realize what we see is not the same as what it was: everything somehow acquires its relativity depending on the change of the seasons of history. Precisely, these ones teach us to read symbols and meanings in the territory.
In fact, the Molino Scodellino belongs to the Channel of Mills and today it is being returned to its purely territorial vocation of symbolic place par excellence, around which organizing the social encounter and providing nourishment for the community. The volunteers of the Association of the Friends of the Molino Scodellino contributed to the performance of its restoration in conjunction with the Region, emphasizing the relevance of nourishment to environmental sustainability, as well as on the cultural value recovery confered to Molino: we mention, in this regard, as traditionally the miller worked alongside the priest, the teacher, the midwife in the group of local and regional authorities.
Stating this, Rosanna Pasi and Giovanni Morini emphasized, might seem like a criticism of the paradigm of industrialization, while, in reality, it rather consists in a clear awareness of the essential importance of identity, to be inevitably declined at the community level as a founding and shared value. Moreover, it is appropriate to refer to the Molino Scodellino using the concept of network, noting how the building belongs to what may be considered as a national network of historic mills, which in turn resides within a European network. The network then becomes the key concept of a new organization that has within its structure the purpose of sharing and respect, two key elements of what could be described as today’s social sensitivity.
In this sense, one can say that a co-design is being inaugurated, with large growth prospects, at present just in its first embryonic stage, as we said. This co-design should involve associations and economic systems as companies and institutions, initiating an itinerary of mutual knowledge viewing the enhancement and shared support of the territory which is, we would like to mention, a fundamental resource according to the thought of sustainability.
In consideration of this latter observation, the Molino Scodellino is included in the number of of places of interest visited by School of the Territory, which has been recently inaugurated by PLEF. This in prospect of a circular and virtuous design of a social, historical, cultural and contemporary heritage inspired by those values of sustainability that have always animated its vocation.