Federico Marcolini

The thesis refers to the former Mantua-Peschiera railway, a branch line that once connected the city of Mantua with the shores of Garda Lake. The railway opened in 1934 and experienced a long and troubled path in order to be completed. Since its closure in 1967 its destiny has been questioned constantly and brought into the search of this thesis. Nowadays, the abandonment of the Mantua-Peschiera is shared by many other Ita- lian railways and, according to a nationwide census, the total amount of abandoned railways is 5000 kilometers in Italy. From the half of the Eighteen century until the middle of the Nineteenth century, railways became the main transport system, examples of industrial development, and one of the key factors in the definition of national image. Thanks to their role, their impact influenced many aspects such as economy, society, politics, and technology, defining efficient national infrastructure systems. However, these “archaeological” traces, an example of the industrial revolution, faced a gradual abandonment with the closure of many kilometers of the national railway network. The cause of it has been ascribed to their obsolescence and irrelevance in the national infrastructural system at that time. Fortunately, today, these revolutionary examples of innovation represent a heritage of great interest, as UNESCO proved in the late ’90s. The thesis, structured in 3 distinct and interconnected parts, clarifies the technological, environmental, and cultural identity of the Mantua-Peschiera railway, through an in-depth study of historical sources, railway manuals, and that deepened bond that the railway has built with the territory of the Mincio Valley. A strategic point of view that reinterprets the unity of places and underlines different territorial objects, guided by the technical description of the railway and through the deepened study of the literature of the themes that characterized the area. In the final chapter, the thesis clarifies possible interventions, due to a reading taken here as a logical consequence of a discourse in which the railway and its remains are interpreted as a cultural route. This new function refers to a heterogeneous group of best practices that, in addition to an in-depth study of greenways, seeks quality in architectural projects capable of reconstructing the narrative that once related the places to the old path and shaping it into a new one.

: Architettura per la Città (Architecture for Urban Centres). Thesis Title: “Management for Architecture, a Service for Creativity” Supervisor: Prof. Aldo Norsa.

Thesis Title: “The Theatre of Ostiano, from birth to last restoration”.