The Relevance of Maintenance and Monitoring in Architectural Conservation

The Italian standards, formerly NORMAL, define Extraordinary Maintenance as those where a major intervention on the building is carried out, usually referred to as a conservation intervention. These receive much attention from the media thus prompting the interest of NGO and for non-profit organizations which take an interest in funding such projects. Conservation interventions are critical for the preservation of our architectural heritage;however, the trigger for their undertaking, as well as their timing, is mainly determined by political interests. Because of the lack of ordinary maintenance, conservation interventions have to address heightened material deterioration problems thus increasing the complexity and invasiveness of the required operations, as well as an overall higher cost. The most worrisome issue is that once the intervention is completed, the building or monument is considered as being in a stable condition and not requiring any further action. Only in few cases is the most ordinary maintenance regularly carried out but what is neglected is the monitoring, the early identification of those “symptoms” revealing that a problem is present and should be addressed before more damage occurs. The paper uses various examples to illustrate the above points.