Icons of the territory. Glasses and locomotives: cross-border strategies for the conservation and enhancement of industrial and craft heritage between Italy and Austria

This publication presents the outcomes of the OPTI-RAIL project (ITAT4902-MP-006), co-financed by the Interreg VI-A Italy–Austria Programme 2021-2027 – CLLD Dolomiti Live.. OPTI-RAIL explores innovative, cross-border strategies for the conservation, restoration, and enhancement of industrial and artisanal heritage in the Dolomiti Live area, connecting Northern Italy and Eastern Austria. The project focuses on two emblematic regional icons: historic cellulose-based eyewear frames from the Cadore eyewear district and the diesel locomotive ÖBB 2043.49 preserved in Lienz (Austria). The publication documents a multidisciplinary approach combining heritage studies, materials science, conservation theory, and community-led cultural development. On the Italian side, the research investigates the degradation mechanisms of historical cellulose nitrate and cellulose acetate eyewear, addressing issues such as denitration, deacetylation, plasticizer migration, and autocatalytic decay. Advanced non-invasive analytical techniques—including FT-IR spectroscopy (ATR and ER modes), Raman spectroscopy, Brillouin Light Scattering, XRD, and digital microscopy—were employed to characterize the polymers and assess conservation status. The study also presents experimental restoration protocols tailored to historic synthetic materials, highlighting the challenges posed by unstable early plastics in museum and archival contexts. On the Austrian side, the project documents the conservation and functional recovery of the ÖBB 2043.49 diesel locomotive by the association EBFL – Eisenbahn Freunde Lienz, aiming not only at structural stabilization but also at restoring its role as a living heritage asset within the Südbahn Heizhaus railway museum. Beyond technical conservation, OPTI-RAIL develops a shared cross-border narrative that reinterprets eyewear and railway engineering as complementary expressions of regional identity, technological innovation, and collective memory. The project demonstrates how bottom-up initiatives—aligned with the principles of the Faro Convention and Community-Led Local Development (CLLD)—can transform industrial artifacts into drivers of cultural tourism, territorial branding, and intergenerational knowledge transfer. This publication serves as both a scientific report and a cultural reflection on the preservation of modern materials and industrial heritage, offering methodological insights relevant to conservators, heritage professionals, materials scientists, and policy-makers engaged in the safeguarding of 19th- and 20th-century design artifacts.