Architectural Restoration and Heritage Conservation

Heritage Preservation is an essential and fundamental topic in the context of issues of concern around the world. It is a clear indication of the progress of civilizations, the one from which subsequent generations derive their culture and their architectural identity. The distortion of the architectural style of heritage buildings due to inappropriate conservation process and other factors is a problematic reality in many countries, especially in recent decades. The paper not only focuses on studying and explaining the goals of conservation but mainly clarifies the mechanisms related to the concept of the conservation process and the way of its development and evaluation as well. This is in order to achieve appropriate treatments in preserving the style and characteristics of heritage buildings through the approach of analyzing of architectural principles. The paper evaluates the conservation process through an analytical approach to the old documents of restored heritage buildings...

Post-war housing estates remains one of the most significant products of modernity representing efforts to develop architecture as a vehicle for a better society.
In Europe, more than 41 million people still live in these sites. Currently endangered by its social, functional and technical obsolescence, many of these housing estates remain the main focus of problematic urban areas, housing low-income households, unemployed people and those from ethnic minorities, infrastructurally and socially disconnected from the city. At a time when the socio-cultural reconstruction of Europe is on the agenda, and when l'habitat pour le plus grand nombre seems to be in danger (due to issues such as the refugee question), looking back to the housing estates built during the post-war reconstruction, within the framework of the welfare state, is a fundamental step for an integrated discussion on the sustainable development of European cities of the 21st century.
This paper present successful preservation strategies undertaken in three European post-war case studies. The aim is to demonstrate how the rehabilitation of these structures, while addressing the demands of the contemporary needs, can represent a tremendous potential achievement, in an overall context of economic, social and environmental sustainability.

The paper is aimed at presenting some results regarding the causes of damage of a masonry church (Chiesa del Rosario) located in Finale Emilia, a town stricken by the May 2012 Emilia Romagna seismic event. The church exhibits a diffused state of damage on the façade (rocking along a horizontal hinge), lateral nave walls (shear), transect (shear and out-of-plane bending) and bell tower (detachment at the connection of the tower to the church and subsequent rotation along a vertical axis). The approach adopted is multidisciplinary and it is conducted within a research project that involves the Technical Universities of Milan, the Technical University of Bari and the Italian Cultural and Architectural Heritage Ministry (MiBAC). The survey analyses conducted comprise a detailed geometric recover of the vol-umes and materials used, basing on post-seismic photogrammetric studies, historical re-search on existing documentation and repeated in situ investigation. Preliminary structural anal...