VIRTUAL: Prague Heritages

Abstract

The procedures and principles of conservation are tools that have been established by different international organizations that seek to help to understand the type of intervention that will be carried out. For an easier understanding, the intervention is determined by answering the question of how much is going to be modified. After that, it is possible to classify the labor as restoration, maintenance, or conservation. Therefore, the proposal of the article is to set the main methodologies into three groups: the first is restoration, which means the act of intervening in the heritage; then comes maintenance, focused on constant monitoring and small interventions to safeguard the construction; and finally, the act of conservation, which consists of taking care of architectural monuments or archeological sites, keeping their current characteristics. Moreover, after proper documentation and evaluation, each methodology would choose which is the best path to follow: anastylosis, repairment, reconstruction, replacement, preservation, refurbishment, etc.; or a special group of activities considered the most risky and the last resource, for the first time grouped in the concept of uncommon conservative activities, like re-location, disassembling, dismantling, and reinstatement; a new proposal of atypical processes, the most risky activities looking to protect the built heritage, when the environment, the surroundings, and the heritage are in themselves the greatest risk. This re-organization can help everyone better understand the different procedures carried out throughout time that sometimes share similar meanings and lead to misunderstandings.