Built Heritage: Conservation vs. Emergencies

Special Issue Information Dear Colleagues, According to the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) “International Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites” (also known as “The Venice Charter”, 1964), “conservation” relates to the systematic maintenance and use, without (important) modifications to heritage and with respect to its values. Conservation is not an exceptional event, but it an open-ended process of knowledge, understanding, maintenance, management, and enhancement, where sustainability, participation, and education are essential matters. Conservation also implies an attention to the environment, because heritage is related to natural, anthropic, cultural, and historical contexts. In particular, architectural and urban heritage fields require a specific reflection, because they are complex systems made by the stratification of transformations over time: They are living expressions of past events and cultures, and of present contingencies. However, natural disasters (such as earthquakes, seaquakes, floods, etc.), wars, and also abandonment, pollution, or climate changes, put built heritage in danger and cause serious problems in conservation practices: In principle, conservation and disastrous events act as antinomic concepts. Moreover, all these considerations bring to the foreground the well-known issues of memory, identity, integrity, and authenticity. This Special Issue of Buildings aims at focusing on issues growing from the relation/collision between conservation and emergencies, with case studies and examples of best practices: What is the role of knowledge in conservation and of surveying and documentation in emergencies? How conservation practices can prevent disasters or aid in reconstruction? How should we work, reconstruct and involve communities after a disaster? Prof. Stefano Brusaporci Prof. Giuseppe Amoruso Guest Editors