Saints Philip and James Church

The Church of Saints Philip and James, located in the old town centre, was damaged by the 2012 earthquakes, affecting the architectural structure, the decorative pictorial apparatus, and the works of art such as altars and wooden chancel. Among the most evident damages: the collapse of the top portion of the main façade and of the wooden and plaster vault of the central nave, the collapse of the masonry vaults of the side aisles, and an extensive crack state on the vault of the apse, and all along the bell tower shaft. Preserving and tracking over time the traces of the recent seismic events, oriented the entire design towards minimized works, intended as transformations that fit in as a further stratification of the cathedral's history.

During the design phase, the morphological-structural aspects were studied, also by means of instrumental tests, in order to reach a level of in-depth knowledge that allowed the identification of restoration and consolidation interventions aimed at remedying the vulnerabilities highlighted by the earthquake and enhancing the performance of the structure, thus achieving seismic improvement. Inside the apse, an intervention has been studied to provide for fibreglass reinforcement elements above the extrados ribs and a perimeter steel curb to perform the functions of cerclage and containment of outward thrusts.

Prior to the structural consolidation work, specific protective structures had to be built at the altars, the choir loft, the decorated plasterwork, and the ornate stuccoes. With a view to return the cathedral to the city's cultural heritage, the interior works were relocated in situ and the gaps in the decorative elements filled in to restore the unified and harmonised image that the earthquake had erased. Another major theme was the restoration of the wooden choir and the organ on the choir loft, both valuable elements damaged by the collapse, for which specialized work was carried out.

The project for the restoration of the Duomo approached the theme of "reconstruction", which in many cases was made possible thanks to geometric and photographic surveys prior to the earthquake, while, in other cases, it turned into a research aimed at finding the right balance with the surviving elements. The reconstruction of the façade is today’s distinguishing feature of the history of Finale Emilia and its territory; the trace of the traumatic event is one of the "marks" that time has left and as such must be maintained to assure to the preservation of memory, not only physical, but also symbolic. The dialogue between the existing masonry and the new one has been harmonised, without deleting their differentiation.