A basic knowledge of Art History, namely History of Architecture, will be helpful.
The practical work will be done generally by small groups of students on themes that will be suggested by the teachers. It will be the opportunity to test in the practice the knowledge acquired in order to set up a conservation project for an historical building, that could show enough variety of deterioration or structural problems. Within the tight timeframe of the course, which requires active student participation from the very beginning, specific operational guidelines will be provided at the beginning of the year and deadlines indicated for the intermediate stages.
The good knowledge of construction systems adopted in historical buildings is an essential tool for any reasonable intervention. The lectures will focus on the cultural reasons and critical assumptions of the contemporary debate on restoration and conservation, starting from a short review on the historical evolution of the discipline and of the design approach. The International Charters on restoration and the Italian laws on Conservation will be compared and discussed. They will therefore address the theme of reading the historical building through the knowledge and analysis tools typical of architecture, such as the geometric survey and material consistency, the analysis of construction and structural systems, combined with those provided by the contribution of other disciplines, such as historical investigations, to finally attain the definition of a project strategy that knows how to combine the needs of current use with the conservation of the material document and its formal qualities.
