The Crudo Museum, located on central Rome Street, was built on an L-shaped lot formerly occupied by a former 17th-century manor house entirely built of
ladiri
. The building consists of two separate bodies (totaling 13 rooms) separated by an almost square-shaped courtyard. A second, smaller court is present at the back.
The main body, built on two floors and aligned along flush with the street, has openings on the two orders (four windows on the ground floor and five French doors with balconies on the second floor). The roof is double-sloped with wooden truss support structure and Sardinian tile roofing on tarp; the walking and roofing slabs are made of wood. The masonry is made of unfired earth, with baked brick profiling around the holes; the thickness of the wall partitions does not exceed 60 cm. Unfired brick, used for raising load-bearing masonry, was originally of the handmade type; the clay was reddish, with notable presence of inserts of various types: gravel, sand, timbers and straw.
The only diaphragm between the outside world and the intimacy of the dwelling is provided by a wide wooden portal surmounted by a semicircular archway, which leads into a quadrangular courtyard paved in cobblestones and equipped with a central well, preceded by a small loggia supported by pillars. The courtyard – enclosed to the west by a high wall and to the east by a clearing room – is bordered to the north by the body overlooking the main road, while, to the south, a building connects it, through a corridor, with
sa pratza ‘e pabasa
, smaller in size (which is why it is also called
sa pratziscedda
) and rectangular shape. The structure that serves as the junction between the two courtyards consists of two floors connected by a central monumental staircase (with a double ramp, equipped with a gabled wooden roof and Sardinian tile covering) that surmounts the entrance portal, set on a semicircular arch.
While it is evident from this summary description that some of the constituent elements of the traditional Campidanese dwelling have been taken up, some innovations from this “architecture without architects” lead us rather to the so-called
palattu
, which echoed the models of nineteenth-century city planning. Clear signs of this modernization-which, while not substantially changing the plan structure of the house, brings it closer to city taste-are certainly the presence of a windowed elevation, the two living floors, and the mud-brick plaster covering.
After serving as the central body of an old mansion, following its purchase by the municipal administration from then-owner Giuseppe Piras, by notarial deed dated April 16, 1857, the lot changed its use, assuming the very important social function of school and town hall. A statement of expenditures dated December 9, 1857, shows that the structural layout of the private home was to roughly replicate that of the present museum, albeit with some restoration actions in the amount of 3300 liras of expenditures.
A floor plan dated Dec. 20, 1940, and some period photos showing schoolchildren in the 1920s show that the part of the building facing the street was used for classrooms (two on the ground floor and two on the first floor), while the innermost body housed the town hall, with an archive, storage room, warehouse and safe room on the ground floor, a second archive, and office of the mayor, the applied and the secretary on the upper floor. In contrast, the small structure on the eastern side served as a municipal clinic.
The relocation in the 1960s of the elementary schools to the building on Via Sassari and of the municipal offices to the new city hall on Via Risorgimento led to a state of neglect and consequent deterioration of the entire structure. To address this situation, a restoration and redevelopment project was prepared in 1985, entrusted to architect Roberto Badas and fully funded by the Regional Department of Education, regarding grants to be allocated for local government museums.
In the intentions of the administrators, however, this was not to be a museum in the classical sense, but a complex structure: an operational headquarters for documentation and research (with permanent laboratory functions), as well as for the preservation, study and protection of all the evidence related to and connected with earthen technology. However, the project did not take off and, currently the museum is used for impromptu exhibitions, conferences and cultural initiatives.
