Moving towards conscious preservation of the architectural heritage: creating a new professional role?
Аннотация
Nowadays, the unsettled dispute over preservation and restoration is alive and well. The main issue is that there is a great deal of uncertainty in the architecture field, thus rendering it difficult to the communication of what comes true. Technical knowledge pertaining restoration works needs to be extensively and scientifically documented, as it affects the future of buildings under repair. Since 2001, a case study analysis has been carried out on public and private programmes of eighteenth-twentieth century historic building repairs. Significantly, attention needs to be paid to whom may best gather and manage technical data from building sites, in order for future generations to be provided with basic technical know-how. Analyzing the Italian law on public works, it does not provide for an official in charge of creating the “consultivo scientifico”, who should declare the works to be closed. Building site supervisors are to draw up a technical and scientific report when the work is completed. However, guidelines on how to draw up the report have not yet been provided. The research has been consistent in suggesting this set of hypotheses: creating a new kind of professional; analyzing the staff just operating on building sites; employing skilled workers from other sectors. Accordingly, the best solution seems to be that site supervisors are given the task of gathering and classifying all information regarding the building site – product brands, the way these are used, implementation timing, weather conditions during works, etc. Current problems relating to the architectural world are clearly related to the preservation and restoration of the existing architectural heritage. In order to solve these problems, a broad culture relating to maintenance is required and, in particular, a precise method which takes into account the “background” of the handmade item must be used. This element assumes actual sharing of information of technical/operational nature, starting with knowledge of the material used for the construction and of the application method used at the time of first building; an analysis must also be implemented with regards to the interventions which were necessarily executed in the past and which have interacted with the existing item this is not a simple matter given that this information may only be discovered during the work yard phase. The operational modalities that are actually implemented by the builder or the restorer are often not recorded within the official documents relating to the intervention. Restoration interventions are planned so as to guarantee an elevated qualitative level by postponing or even avoiding a restoration on the existing item. The starting point involves setting a “time zero” which potentially coincides with the recent restoration as well as imposing serious and constant monitoring in the sense of control activities which are implemented with visual or instrumental means and which aim to evaluate by verifying indicator parameters the “state of health” of the asset and the behavior of the implemented interventions over time. For this purpose, it will be necessary to use applicable tests on site which allow for the acquisition of information on microscopic phenomena by verifying markets and any opportune indicator parameters; this would allow for an assessment of the compatibility and curability of the utilized technical choices by implementing a comparison on a “sample” whose scale is equivalent to that of the whole asset. As a result, it is important to implement direct and constant observation during the work yard phase in order to identify utilized products and procedures as well as the environment and the requirement of additional information for the purposes of conscious maintenance over time. The time of restoration is considered an exceptional opportunity for gaining in-depth knowledge of the asset given that it allows human and economic resources to become available and brings together the specialized skills that are required for conducting experiments in addition to providing access to parts of the work which would otherwise not be easily examined and which allow for direct field work. The research method of the group operational within the ISET Department of the Polytechnic of Turin is based on these ideas and is applied to real case studies that are based on the collection of data from both historical and modern construction work yards (Figure 1, 2). The primary objectives include the supply of specifications for an appropriate maintenance methodology which will be applied to the work in the phase following that of restoration and which must be part of the process which leads to overall management even in terms of maintenance through knowledge of the asset and of its issues, problems and executive intervention specifications. The primary requirements for preparing maintenance methodologies which allow the asset to be efficiently maintained and reduce the need for additional emergency restoration interventions in addition to a complete knowledge of the state of the asset at the end of the intervention (i.e. very specific knowledge of the asset but also all the technical specifications of the intervention to which it was subject) XXI International CIPA Symposium, 01-06 October, Athens, Greece