Because of its religious historic past, the city of Parma is full of desecrated ecclesiastic buildings which, most of the time, are unfortunately unused, and other luckier times had been used in countless ways.

If we want to join some nice music shows we can go to the "Santa Maria del Carmine's Church", transformed in the new auditorium connected with the Conservatory; if we want to study in a nice place we just have to go to the "Paolotti's Library", obtained from the "San Francesco di Paola's Church" and if we want to go shopping we can go to "S.c.o.u.t.", obtained from the "Santa Maria del Fiore's Church".

Together with these churches other many have been used in the last few years: do not forget about "San Quirino's Oratory", now offices of "PUC' (Parma Urban Center), "San Ludovico's Church" which will host "Cibus" offices, "Santa Elisabetta's Church" which is a music museum, "Santa Maria dei Servi's Church", hosting the nursing home "Don Gnocchi" and others, which nowadays have still not found a collocation Within this list I cannot miss the church that I've decided to examine in depth for a new use and new functions: the church of San Tiburzio.

One of the features which have always marked the city of Parma, together with "cheese and ham", is the religious presence that shapes the city from the ground floor and from above.

A long series of historic events had signed the current morphology of religious buildings and brought it to the present: if in the past religion has always had a strong influence, even in temporal power, things changed particularly after the Napoleonic interventions.

With its suppressive actions, he has strongly signed the religious urban context from the morphological and functional point of view. Actually, he has been the real first one who had turned the function of religious buildings, adapting them to his necessities. Even after Napoleon's interventions, its successors in Parma behaved in the same way, trying to get (sometimes) the best from those architectures.

At that time, buildings which have always been religious shelter and worship places changed their main significance: some have been demolished, some have been privatized and used by privates for their purposes, some have been transformed and used as universities and hospitals, some have been partially maintained and the rest sold, and many other examples..

What does it mean?

It means that reuse of churches exists at least since two centuries, and at that time it was meant exactly as we intent it nowadays, with its modern purposes: it was an empty or unused huge space, which could be used for other purposes.

That is the same that happens nowadays; when we are in front of a religious architecture, or abandoned architectures in general, which is left abandoned, we want to give it again a new life, trying to obtain the best from its reuse.

That is the reason why the aim of the thesis is the investigation of the church and its context from each aspects (historical, architectonic, social and functional) and finally, the attempt to get a purpose for a new configuration, in order not to miss this precious heritage. The study investigates the choice of adaptive reuse of abandoned churches in general and furthermore the specific one of Saint Tiburzio, providing important considerations to support the thesis.

Again, despite the symbolic role that the church was representing for both the ecclesiastic and the local community of Parma, it has been abandoned; why this church has been abandoned? What has this abandonment meant at that time for both the local and the ecclesiastic community? And what does it mean nowadays?

Starting from that, the question that the research's work is meant to answer is: how could be welcomed by thM community and the building itself an adaptive reuse of the church? Is that the best and only way to act in order not to lose its cultural significance or are there some 1 other better solutions in order to ensure the best for its] future broadcasting?

This thesis is meant to answer those questions, or at least is trying to find a good way in order to help a possible answer in the future.