Intangible Cultural Heritage Valorisation: a New Field for Design Research and Practice

This paper presents a new emerging knowledge and professional field for the design research processes and design practice, which is Cultural Heritage Valorisation, focusing, as paradigmatic case study, on the valorisation of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of territories and local communities. The Intangible Cultural Heritage documentation and transmission is socially relevant and, due to its immaterial specific nature, needs proper methodologies, technologies and tools, with a complexity never seen before: in fact the intangible heritage needs to be continuously performed and taught to ensure its own existence and not simply catalogued. Design approaches this complexity emphasizing the process nature of this intangible patrimony (often disregarded by the conservative tradition, limited to questions of classification) and