The urban wall surface is in a privileged position for the technical and artistic pursuit of iconic meanings that go beyond the mere function of separating external and internal space. This essay investigates the theme of wall paintings following the emergence of the historic architectures that house them. Between the 1970s and 1980s, the exterior walls of minor architecture in Sardinia are protagonists of contaminations between architecture and art aimed at conveying social and political messages. While the murals paved the way for subsequent developments that were mostly emulative, often commissioned, they pose the problem of their fate today. They are spontaneous visual units on which it is necessary to reflect in order to guide the theoretical and operational tools of the regenerative conservation project of works that have become total between painting and architecture, city and society, identity, and memory.
