Activating new strategies for the Lombardy Region and the Italian-Swiss border area: A cultural design approach

The focus on the explorative and uncodified phase of the design process, the innovation potential, the role of the design practice as a mediator among external factors, the research framework and the new cultural “products” are strong elements of the Advanced Design approach that can be recognised in two experiences of applied research: R.E.I.L. (Register of Intangible Heritage of Lombardy) and E.CH.I. (Ethnographies Italo-Swiss for the valorisation of the intangible heritage of the italian-swiss border). The cultural politics of the public authorites involved have been an opportunity to test the process of “territorial design” as a creative process aimed at producing a series of actions oriented to increasing the local development. Particular attention has been paid to the intangible cultural heritage as an expression of knowledge and values (symbolic-ritual) of the local communities that over time has implemented creative strategies for the enhancement of its identity. This paper faces the topic of the valorisation of the territorial identity and explains the two research projects mentioned before. It enters into the merits of the several levels and scales of intervention. Keywords: design for cultural heritage, intangible heritage, cultural identity.