93646 - Restoration Workshop T

Course contents

Cultural heritage constitutes an inheritance that has become increasingly vast and articulated. Endowed with tangible and intangible values, this heritage represents a legacy that the present must take care of, thus making itself responsible ‘in the first person’. The protection of cultural and architectural heritage has moved from a culture of constraint to a culture of heritage, a fact that finds clear expression in the Council of Europe's Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society - better known as the 'Faro Convention' (2005) - which strongly emphasises the right of every person to take an interest and participate in cultural life. It is clear that caring for heritage has effects that, going well beyond the simple transmission of the (certainly indispensable) asset to the future, can ensure well-being both for the individual citizens who benefit from it and for the entire community, which recognises itself in the heritage, in dynamics of comparison and enrichment with other communities.

Students will be provided with training on the following:


1) Theory and history of conservation: a journey through the scholars of the discipline, to understand the origins of the concept of conservation and its evolution over time up to the present day.


2) The current debate and the main methodological proposals, in particular:


-  distinguishability, minimum intervention, reversibility, compatibility.


- relationship old/new and the dialectic between critical process and creative act.


- Which materials for restoration? Relationship between technical choices and respect for the building.


- Use and reuse of historic buildings


- Working in addition, i.e. how ‘not to remove’ historical part


3) Documentary sources/geometrical survey aimed at materials and deterioration patterns: the building as the first document of itself is to be ‘interrogated’ through the survey, the data obtained from the documentary research is put into a system, in order to achieve a correct interpretation of the cultural asset.


3a) MATERIALS: materials, techniques, construction elements of the traditional building site


3b) STATE OF CONSERVATION: causes and processes of deterioration of structures and materials, diagnostics


4) INTERVENTION: conservation of materials through the techniques of cleaning, consolidation and protection, restoration of vertical and horizontal structures orientation criteria in static interventions



The lab will therefore focus on a study case of which the students, divided into groups, will have to complete an exercise that will follow a path that from the knowledge to the drafting of a conservation plan through these intermediate phases, which will be assessed:

- A) historical-critical investigation through the archive materials and bibliography provided;

- B) examination of materials and construction techniques, analysis of degradation;

- C) proposal of a conservation plan for the case study.

- D) A text where the students will collect the main concepts both of the technical and theoretical aspects of the intervention project

The final grade will be determined by the sum of the evaluations of the intermediate stages, the coherence of the project path (from the historical-critical analysis of the artefact to the proposal of a conservation plan), the clarity and effectiveness of the exposition: quality of the papers and propriety of language.

Readings/Bibliography

A. Bellini (a cura di), Tecniche della conservazione , Angeli, Milano 1986, quarta edizione aggiornata 1992

G. Carbonara (a cura di), Trattato di restauro architettonico , Utet, Torino 1996 e anni successivi con riferimenti agli argomenti trattati nel corso

G. Carbonara , Avvicinamento al restauro . Teoria, storia, monumenti , Liguori, Napoli 1997

L. Zevi , Il manuale del restauro architettonico, Mancosu, Roma 2001

Specific Bibliography will be provided step by step during the lessons.

Teaching methods

Ex-cathedra lessons, seminars and work in the classroom. Site visits.

Assessment methods

The students organized in small groups will present the results of an exercise on a case studies, that will be evaluated. The final exam consists of an oral discussion.

Office hours

See the website of Leila Signorelli

See the website of Nicola Santopuoli