The Underground Cultural Landscape as an essential component of local identity An implementation solution of the UNESCO Recommendation of Historic Urban Landscape

Some success stories in the field of Underground Built Heritage (UBH), such as the urban regeneration of Matera (Italy) and Göreme in Cappadocia (Turkey) have captured the attention of the world. The newborn class of UBH embraces a variety of artefacts of archaeological, historic, artistic and architectural interest, each of them having historical and cultural uniqueness and being source of identity for local communities. However, this cultural resource is largely unexplored. The identification of the elements supporting the creation of a common approach to an heritage-led enhancement based on UBH needs the improvement of the definition of the class itself and the related re-use map, so as to explore all the potential of these forms of heritage, whose variety and complexity have yet to be fully understood. While part of the research is moving in this direction, a possible research topic could be the concept of Underground Cultural Landscape (UCL), as a macro set of UBH varieties comprising - in a territorial continuum - both the good and the complex of historical-cultural-social and economic values of the context in which it is inserted in a perspective of planning for conservation and sustainable reuse. In other words, UCL set could reflect the definition of historical landscape as promoted by the Recommendation on Historic Urban Landscape (HUL).