EAAE – ENHSA NETWORK ON CONSERVATION

Coordinators: Professor Stefano F. Musso – Professor Loughlin Kealy

IV meeting and workshop organized by:
Faculty of Architecture of the University of Rome “La Sapienza” 

“Restoration/Reconstruction. Small Historic Centers: Conservation in the Changes”
Roma-Castelvecchio Calvisio, Italy – 3-5 October 2013.

This conference-workshop builds on the workshops held in Genoa, Dublin and Bucharest in 2007, 2009, 2011.

The theme to be addressed is that of “reconstruction”, thinking about the necessity of finding a strict relation between this topic and restoration/conservation in an historic center that has been partly abandoned and subjected to a disaster. Reconstruction relates to little portions of historical architecture that have been destroyed (walls, roofs, interiors etc), to structural issues, to architectural integration but also to the problems of reconstitution of human activity and care. In that sense, the deep knowledge of the site gives the tools for making the best choices for intervention.

The workshop is experimental: participants are asked, through the medium of the real site of Castelvecchio Calvisio, to reflect on some key issues that impact on conservation/restoration practice and theory and on how these may be explored in teaching. The ambition is to create a discursive atmosphere as a contribution to the reflective papers of the participants, as in the previous workshop.

Four inter-connected themes are put forward for consideration:

1. Methodology and goals of the conservation research in architecture of small historic towns
2. Use and fruition: from the territory to the little town
3. Structural and building issues
4. Integrations of urban gaps.

The working language of the Workshop is English.

The general subject

To facilitate creative exploration the sessions of the Workshop will be held in Rome and in Castelvecchio Calvisio, near L’Aquila.

The workshop work on the issue of conservation and use of historical little towns in a territory that was invested, before the earthquake in April 2009, by a process of desertification. This process was especially due to the mountain morphology of the place, the distance from the main infrastructures and the productive activities, the moving of inhabitants toward the coast and the main towns.

The real context for the workshop will be Castelvecchio Calvisio  assumed as a special case of reference, for its special conformation and its historical transformations, but also a good example of the problems of conservation of little historical centers in Europe.