What is heritage ?
Heritage is the possessions or assets inherited, and it can be historical, artistic or cultural
Cultural identity is the set of intangible features that belong to and define a community.
The concept of Cultural Asset is the one that integrates objects with historical or artistic value, significant testimony of human culture with documentary capacity.
Why is important the preservation of heritage?
Because the preservation of the heritage is the only way of not losing the values of cultural identity. Heritage has cultural, artistic, aesthetic, historical, authentic, antique, functional, social, and economic value.
What do we have to preserve ?
Not only the physical architectural heritage but also its values. Every aspect of a building must be taken care of:
-Matter
-Construction Techniques
-Shapes, dimensions
-Colours, materials, textures
-Character
-Use
-Environment
-Meanings
How do we preserve it?
-Legislative instruments:
- The protection of the heritage by means of legal actions and administrative rules
- The listing of the heritage in an inventory
-Interventions:
- Preservation: operations performed to ensure survival against hazards or possible damages
- Maintenance: continuous maintenance through small repairs. Used to prolong as long as possible the materials used. Is ecommended avoiding radical changes in a historical building
- Consolidation: way of preserving, posssible thanks to a general strengthening. The action provides higher consistency and solidity.
- Reparing: to leave in good condition an object that was broken or deteriorated
- Restoration: to restitute or improve in a building what was lost with the passage of time, without incurring alterations or falsifications of its documentary nature.
- Adaptation: returning something to its old state of efficiency and functionality
- Reconstruction: procedure of integral or partial reconstruction, with the introduction of new material .
- Anastilosis: aarchaelogical term for a technique whereby a ruined building or monument is rebuilt using original architectural elements. Set of operations to put in place building elements (generally fallen and scattered).
- Ripristinar: retourning a building to a known earlier state by removing accretions or by reassembling existing elements. This action is usually rejected because it takes away part of the history of the building.