The ‘Porticoes Project’ is kicking off as the new edition of the ‘Three Institutions and One Heritage’ regional programme.
The project entails setting up five work sites that will engage over 50 students of the Restoration, Communication, Heritage Education, Graphic Design and Cinema and Audio-Visual Media courses. More specifically, they will be involved in restoring the wooden portico of Palazzo Grassi, at 12 Via Marsala, and a portion of portico with a shrineand fresco of the Madonna with Child in Via delle Belle Arti. The 18th-century drawings with views of Bologna by Pio Panfili, preserved at the Archiginnasio, will also undergo maintenance.
“One of the Region’s institutional tasks is to strengthen the cultural fabric of our territory, and the Three Institutions and One Heritage programme fully meets this need. Over recent years, it has proven the effectiveness of a coordinated effort between institutions to upgrade an often little-known asset”, said Regional Councilman Felicori at the press conference. “The idea of ‘school-work sites’ has also allowed hundreds of students to put themselves to the test and get direct experience in the field, helpful for their future role as operators working with cultural properties”.
To carry out the Porticoes Project, the Emilia-Romagna Region signed an agreement with the Academy of Fine Arts of Bologna, which requires it to coordinate all the organisational steps and to support the project with a total contribution of 20,000 euros to the Academy.
“We are pleased to be partners from the very first edition of a virtuous project that is based on a fundamental assumption such as networking and an exchange of views between three institutions, which become training agencies on the territory, offering experiences in the field to our students”, said the Director of the Academy of Fine Arts of Bologna, Cristina Francucci. “This year, in addition to the basic restoration and preservation work of the School of Restoration and that of dissemination and documentation of the Graphic Design and Cinema and Audio-Visual Media courses, we have that of city heritage education with a peer-to-peer operation offered to different secondary school classes by our Department of Communication and Didactics of Art”.
“We are pleased that the ‘Three Institutions and One Heritage’ programme chose to work on the Porticoes this year, thereby celebrating the addition of our urban patrimony to the World Heritage List and opening important spaces for experimentation consistent with the goals of the UNESCO World Heritage Property Management Plan”, said Councilwoman Orioli.