Date: Tuesday, 14 February 2017
http://www.prealpina.it/pages/il-politecnico-di-milano-aiutera-asmara-a-diventare-sito-unesco-134984.html Roma 14/02/2017 Eritrea The Politecnico di Milano help Asmara to become Unesco site Technical form for the restoration project funded by EU Rome, February 14 (askanews) - The Politecnico di Milano will form Eritreans technicians for the restoration of cultural heritage and architecture of Asmara, as part of a project funded with nearly € 300,000 from the European Union. He explained the architect of the university Susanna Bortolotto Milan, contacted by askanews after the EU reported on the Polytechnic involvement in the project entitled "Capacity building for safeguarding Asmara's historic urban environment". Brussels has announced recently the green light to a € 297,721.87 funding for the development and protection of heritage activities in Asmara, "unique in the world", which makes the Eritrean capital of the "modernist city of the African continent". Candidate city last year to become Unesco heritage and the UN agency's decision is expected in the first half of 2017. The project, presented dall'Asmara Heritage Project and by the city of Asmara, provides for the completion of the "Conservation Master Plan" of the city , a course for the conservation, protection and enhancement of the architectural heritage and activities that encourage awareness and public involvement. "The Asmara Heritage Project will implement the project in collaboration with the Politecnico di Milano", reads the statement issued by the EU. Interviewed by askanews, Susanna Bortolotto explained that the Italian teachers of the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies will be engaged for two years with the Eritrean authorities and that "the course of the Polytechnic, the theoretical and practical school yards, will be aimed at preparing technical Eritrean able to carry out restoration projects on the architecture of Asmara ". "The educational activities on the field - he added - ensuring an approach and a practice of the Modern sull'edificato interference, understand, respect and confirm each value with the built historic permanence". Already it requested in July last year, on his return from a conference held in Asmara, the architect had remarked how the Eritrean capital is "a unique example that I hope the international community recognizes as a UNESCO site, because he deserves it." With its rationalist cinema, the futuristic service station Fiat Tagliero, villas and cafes remained intact from the colonial, "Asmara is a" jewel, he added, now in need of maintenance and enhancement. In this, he remarked Bortolotto, the Italian embassy in Asmara served as a "bridge between local needs and expertise in the field of restoration of the university in Milan." "Capital of the Italian colony from the late nineteenth century, Asmara became an important city in the '20s, becoming a sort of testing ground for modern architecture and urban planning," he recalled in the EU statement. And all this is still visible "in the many types of buildings built in various styles, such as eclectic, neo-classical, futuristic, monumentalist, rationalist and modernist." "The fascinating capital of Eritrea - said Brussels - with a historic basis of 4,300 surveyed buildings within an area of 480 hectares, could also soon become the first UNESCO World Heritage site of Eritrea". askanews --Software translation--
