Old landscapes and new functions. Coastal architectures redesign the geography of the coastal belts

The geographical space should be conceived as a progressive and conscious construction, resulting from the interaction between individual and collective actions. If from the second post-war period and for the following twenty years the coastal space has maintained even a minimal break with the anthropized spaces, starting from the 1970s the rapid industrial development has increasingly occupied the coasts. These changes along the costal space can be understood referring to the 'maritime-coastal region', by which Vallega defines a special region located between the two environments, that is the land and the sea, that, although being profoundly different, have established integrated forms of occupation and integration of resources. In the following years, the growing awareness of the economic importance of the sea and its immediate hinterland has generated further changes in the evaluation of the role of maritime spaces in the processes of territorial organization. Considering these premises, the research focuses its attention on one of the most symbolic maritime cultural assets: lighthouses. They are differently distributed along the European coastlines, responding to the same historical function, and evoking a common past. For all that, the main aim of the present research is to advance a comparative study about their use, rehabilitation, and conversion in two Mediterranean Countries, namely Italy and Spain. After a general introduction, the research will adopt a regional scale analysis to compare the strategies implemented by finisterre regions such as Sicily and Galicia to restore centrality and value of use to those artifacts abandoned over time. The landscapes of the three case-studies, characterized by the presence of lighthouses and other architectural structures for a long time at the service of the navy, is being redefined with new economic and social functions. As a result, lighthouses and other cultural resources are once again considered as an expression of that system of signs that binds the territorial components. From a methodological point of view, the proposal will combine quantitative data and qualitative sources. They will be treated and presented differently to highlight the changes that have taken place. In reconstructing this evolutionary process, the proposal will go through the analysis of the new socio-cultural and economic dynamics which, always guided by an inner Mediterranean identity, are transforming the coasts. The contribution will mainly reflect on the growing tourist interest in the recovery and reuse of those abandoned coastal artifacts with a high attractive potential.