Dalla muratura portante alla muratura portata

Investigating stone constructions means analysing an important moment in the construction of the city of Palermo. In fact, up to the end of the 30es, when in the rest of Europe buildings were already reinforced concrete or steel built, in Palermo constructions were masonry built, due to both the facility of retrieval and processing this material and the technical culture of planners and workers. The first buildings with “mixed” constructive systems are realized with masonry and reinforced concrete elements, built on the stocks (parpoint work and slabes, staircases and balconies in reinforced concrete). The use of stone load-bearing masonry, heritage of the rural constructions of the 30es, influences notably the rooms distribution, with reduced dimension spans (4-5 meters), still. Also the first buildings, realized in the second postwar period, with an independent reinforced concrete frame, show big dimension masonry elements even if masonries don’t provide more carrying function and reinforced concrete columns are inserted, almost hidden, in masonry. The paper intends, through the analysis of some buildings realized in the Palermo's territory in the 30es and in the second postwar period, to analyse the variation in the use of the “stone” in time.