Technological footprint and cultural identity: the proposal of the Ecomuseum of the water in Sant'Agata de' Goti

Our territory is widely characterized by favorable environmental resources that over time have produced tangible and intangible culture. This, due to the changing of the same benign conditions that had favored it, was slowly lost and with it the technological processes which were the basis. Ecomuseum is a valid participated instrument in order to recover this material and immaterial culture. Thanks to the collaborative support between public istitutions and private associations, it could preserve more than matter even the memory of technological processes at the base of the production process: "technological footprint." The concept of "technological footprint" and the research of its value is intrinsic to the role of an eco-museum. The paper presents the interesting proposal to set up the “Ecomuseum of the Water” in Sant'Agata de'Goti, a place where the presence of this precious environmental resource has determined, through the implementation of a unique technological process, a peculiar "footprint " with an evident aknowledgement on the territory. The creation and spread of an eco-museum is also attributable to will and organizational planning of Public Institutions and/or Associations which on the territory recognize and consolidate the "memory" and the protection of the "presence" of tangible and intangible assets. The design experimentation starts on the territory by identifying the potentialities in embryo: the presence of natural and man-made water system, whose punctual nodes are artefacts with architectural value represented by fountains, wash houses, water mills and cisterns. It is believed that this basin of technological culture could orient the future development of the territory in a perspective of environmental, economic and social responsibility and participation of public and private actors and the entire local community, through the application of a dynamic development process. In particular, the “Ecomuseum of Water” aims to recover, promote and document the historical memory, life, material and immaterial culture, the relationship between natural and man-made environment, the traditions, activities, practices of life and work and local production as well as the way in which the settlements and the works of man have characterized the formation and evolution of the landscape and the territory of Sant’Agata de’Goti