In the early Fifties, the monuments repaired after the damages of the war, however numerous, were the minority than the ruined ones awaiting restoration. This was the result, despite the many difficulties of reconstruction, of the method of philological restoration, suitable to the buildings slightly damaged, but not to those that were destroyed in whole or in part. The distance between the categories of G. Giovannoni and the reconstruction of major parts of buildings was proved in all its limits and outcomes almost always destructive of the remaining identity. Based on these findings, the paper aims to argue about the fate suffered by the architectural heritage of Abruzzo, in the various features that the post-war reconstruction assigned to the restoration.