Girifalco Fortress

BASTION OF SANT'EGIDIO

Throughout history, fortresses were usually placed on the higher point of the city, for both a defensive and symbolic value. Being isolated from their very surrounding, they therefore represented an impenetrable place. And still they are, especially where the necessity of preserving and making usable this kind of buildings is required. Out of their own time, fortresses are forced to mutate their role nowadays, and to avoid being a touristic trap within a living museum—yet keeping their iconic feature. Based on these premises, we therefore began the analysis about the Girifalco Fortress, and the Bastion of Sant’Egidio zone in particular, which represents one of the four external extremities of the building. This bastion is located in the north-east corner of the fortress, being oriented at the mountain of the same name.

The analysis of the structural and material decay, together with the critical interpretation made on different parts of the bastion, converge in selective choices, aiming for the identification, preservation and enhancement of the inherent values of the keep, as well as bringing out into the open the process and the different phases that shaped the structure