SAN LUCA DEGLI EREMITANI DI SANT’AGOSTINO A PARMA: DA CONVENTO A STRUTTURA MILITARE. ANALISI STORICA E RILIEVO ARCHITETTONICO PER LA DEFINIZIONE DELLE CONDIZIONI DI TRASFORMABILITA’ | SAN LUCA DEGLI EREMITANI OF SANT’AGOSTINO IN PARMA: FROM CONVENT TO MILITARY STRUCTURE. HISTORICAL ANALYSIS AND ARCHITECTURAL SURVEY FOR DEFINING TRASFORMABILITY

The issue of conversion of spaces and buildings now abandoned, whatever their original destination, is always very charming and full of implications. An essential moment in identifying the most appropriate functions to be installed in disused buildings is the knowledge and understanding of the characteristics of the volumes and spaces. It is necessary to know how to decrypt the vocations of use through a careful reading of the actual situation compared with the changes that occurred over time. Survey is an open system of knowledge that includes a rigorous geometric-dimensional description of the current state deriving from measurement and graphic restitution operations in appropriate reduction scale. The study assessing the most suitable conditions of transformation is supported by the survey and the comparative readings between the state of fact and historical information derived from bibliographic and archival analysis. The former convent of San Luca degli Eremitani in Parma has been studied through this analytical approach. It was converted to military use after the suppression of the religious order in the Napoleonic age. The relationship between the original function of the building and the military uses is particularly interesting: they only partially altered the appearance of the great monumental complex, handing it today bare of the original decorative apparatus, but above all in need of a new function that brings it back to life by re-opening it to the city.