Symbolic implications of use and re-use of underground urban spaces. A historical interpretative framework

Underground Built Heritage is an active element in the processes of structuring and transforming urban spaces: it has the role of condensing symbols and meanings, agglutinates and retains elements of high symbolic intensity. Its specificity can outline general items of urban history, crucial steps into the settlement dynamics, together with forms and modalities of the spaces semantisation and re-semantisation. For this reason, studying its origin and dynamics in an active perspective of valorisation means acting within the society and its deepest cultural living aspects. The analysis of situations and case studies helps to clarify and to define key concepts and definitions in the processes of urban planning, settlement transformation and heritage enhancement. In particular, case studies in Rome and Jerusalem highlight that religious and identity aspects are predominant in the genesis of the heritage, which still plays an active role in global cultural dynamics.