Connecting Austria with the Friulian
plateau and consequently with the sea, Val Fella was since the antiquity a
strategic point of the north-eastern Italian Alps and the nearby village of Chiusaforte played a defensive role. Here the
Italian Army built up at the beginning of the XX century a fort on the near located
Col Badin, a small summit with a great panorama upon the Julian Alps. The fort
was then particularly important during the WWI. After the Caporetto rout, the
Italian troops quartered here tried to stop the Austrian Feldjäger, were
however defeated immediately in October 1917. Forte Badin was used then in the
postwar period as barrack and training place, then slowly dismissed. Only about
a decade ago, as the Municipality of Chiusaforte became the owner of Forte
Badin, local authorities started wondering about reparing these buildings and
using them for cultural and educative purpose. That's why a massive restoration
project of the original structure of the fort took place under the supervision
of a team of venetian architects. Forte Badin was so transformed in an
innovative Museum on WWI, providing also accommodation possibilities.
If every new initiative and space
devoted to WWI should be welcomed, the Great War Museum of Chiusaforte deserves
a special mention, since the restoration intervention show a peculiar
awareness of “time feeling”. The buildings intended to the reception of the
visitors (mainly the civil parts, such as the dormitories, where info point and
cafeteria are placed) were accurately renewed. In the other edifices (namely
those used for war necessities) the intervention was instead limited in
“stopping” the degradation process. That's why graffiti and traces of soldiers
who stayed at the fort from its construction, then during the Great War, up to
its abandonment in the late Sixties were preserved together with the calcareous
incrustations and the erosion or the water infiltration.
Due to some bureaucratic setbacks, the Museum has
still a restricted accessibility. However, you can get further information on
the Museum and forthcoming opening time at the municipality of
Chiusaforte.