Maria Carmela Frate – Conferenza Tel Aviv
Q: Your lecture touches upon an issue that many communities struggle to cope with around the world. In Jerusalem for example, citizen groups are fighting to preserve historic buildings and to preserve the qualities of public space. My question is how does public space (the green front yard, parking, etc) come into the equation when developers try to fulfil their legitimate building rights and instead of demolishing a historic building, they build up the free area around it?
Thank you for this question focused not only on historic (or historical) buildings but also on their surroundings… that are an old question… I would like to note the Vènice Charter (1964)…. in the Article n.6. we can read that
- The conservation of a monument implies preserving a setting which is not out of scale. Wherever the traditional setting exists, it must be kept. No new construction, demolition or modification which would alter the relations (of mass and colour) must be allowed.
And in the declaration of Amsterdam (made in 1975) we can read that
- The architectural heritage includes not only individual buildings of exceptional quality but also their surroundings.
So, we must assume that every historic building has a cultural value that comes also from his urban surrounding …..and this context must receive attention from rules because the quality of a historic building comes also from its urban surrounding. Focusing about your question,
As you said, in the urban landscapes open spaces suffer from deterioration caused by man in the attempt to satisfy our society, …..in this case to satisfy the devèlopers…. This crisis is cause of a progrèssive retraction of urban open spaces, dàmaging the identity of places, very acute in historic urban landscapes. But I think that public spaces are not all the same………….. as paradox
- there are public urban places where people are not wèlcome
- there are private spaces that are more public than the public ones
So, when we talk about urban public spaces we have to take into account these dìfferences and what they mean. In particular, I think that a little piazza, a court yard, the space under a tree, streets and squares…. create the possibility for social life; they are public spaces that can contribùte to increase social interaction of residents…. As consequence, the quality of these spaces is commonly perceived as quality of urban life …………………the social sustainability is just this . In particular, I think that in historical cities, in addition to conserving the heritage buildings and materials, spaces urban conservation must be planned as socio-cultural àssèt, …..
So, for a urban regeneration, the sustainable sequence must be LIFE-SPACE-BUILDINGS not vice versa; LIFE must have the priority. As you know I am based in Italy and, as architects, we take advantage by our laws, rules and regulations…. We have a national law that protects every type of cultural heritage, over all architectures but also the space around them…. And this from the end of XIX century, more since 1939…. We have also local rules according to this national laws … thus…..
- If the space is public or has a public use (a court-yard, a front-yard, a parking), in Italy to change this use is very difficult, because there are urban planning standards to respect, in our historical towns and cities too……so it is very difficult to build on free areas around historical buildings… it is impossible
- On the other hand, if a devèloper has a legitimate building-rights up a place, this means that rules and regulations allow this… it is difficult to believe that up a public space a devèloper can build without public permission…
Finally, in Italy, transforming the surrounding of historic buildings is almost impossible….. also because the right to build is not a consequence to the right of ownership… these are two distinct rights. ……Ending my answer.. About Jerusalem, I went there fifteen years ago, Jerusalem is a historic living city, it is a combination of places, of people, …………in which the local resident’s culture and lifestyle (…. Public spaces too) need to be presèrved. I think that, according to a top down process…. , it is up to the public entity to set rules and contròl…to forbìd this transformations… This is possible through laws, rules and regulations, through design guidelines, more specific in consèrving the heritage and improving the quality of life. But when this is not followed by public entity, it is necessary to take action with bottom up process……. As you said, citizen groups have to fight to preserve historic buildings and to preserve the qualities of public space around them. …..If I have a few minutes, I would like to be more precise about Italy….
- As we know, the historical buildings can be a public or a private property, there are not difference…… If they have a high value, they are considered as monuments (for example an historical palace) and in these cases they are subject to protèctive restrictions…. it is only possible to do maintenance or restoration. It is impossible to demolish them; around them, other buildings and spaces are protected…
- Then, there are also historical buildings that are not monuments but they have a value that comes from their age or from the identity of the town in which they are (in my lecture I call them ordinary historical buildings), I’m thinking about the historical centre of Assisi, or of many other historical towns …here the monument is not every small house or building but the whole historical centre that includes private and public spaces…. or streets, squares, courtyards…. In these cases it is possible to do maintenance, restoration and only those interventions to improve the housing level
Q: In Athens, Greece one sees many historic buildings being abandoned because their owners don’t have the means to repair and reuse them. How can we overcome this obstacle in reusing historic buildings in a more effective way?
Thank you for this second question fòcused on reuse of historic buildings. I think (that) there are abàndoned buildings because there was the possibility to build new ones in other part of the city, this in Athen and in other cities of the world….in Italy too. This possibility generated a trend towards new buildings, specially in new areas, and as a consequence we have on one side “very messy suburbs” but on the other side historical buildings in decade…. We are taking risks that those previous devèlopers could demòlish them or could build – up free surrounding areas…..
As I said in my lecture, the priority must be to reuse existing buildings, according to an environmental approach…. Because every building is a common good, as consequence of its use of common environmental resources….. they have enormous potential. When we have buildings with a historical value, they add the common cultural identity to the environmental value. These “symbolic meanings and identity” are absent in the contemporary city but in historical heritage they are a unìque intàngible value.
For citizens, historic buildings are the basis of local identity and of the “sense of belonging” to a community. ….thus, safeguàrding buildings has a positive impact …..and promotes good living conditions.As consequence, I think that recovering of disused buildings could be a virtuous pràctice not only in terms of sustainability …… but also for the role that this approach can play as public landmarks in social and urban regeneration of those disused areas of our cities.But I think it is very important to know what is the potential of disused historic buildings and it is important to know what future we could imagine for old buildings that historically have played a high role to forming the memory and identity of a society. So, reusing must be considered not only a cultural or environmental priority, it must be a pòlicy towards more liveable cities….. and the results are strong when this regeneration meets current needs.
Giving a look on Europe….…. the pressure on infràstructures is evident and resources are decreasing. European cities, hit by the economic crisis, have ceased their outward expansion and turned back toward their forgotten centers. …. an increasing number of cities are experimènting (with interdisciplinary and collective strategies) for rehabilitating their residential buildings (became empty or disused), and their open spaces that have been abandoned and forgotten, ……all this investigating the theme of adaptive reuse…. …. this is possible through the reuse based on the restoration and rehabilitation of historic buildings and of their surroundings areas. Thus, administrators, architects, planners, contractors, developers and citizens have to start a process of re-assessing what exists, with the aim to re-think the city in terms of cultural identity, live-ability, sustainability.
I could cite our policies, in Italy, also the last. Our policies chose alrèady in the recent past – and are choosing now – the way of tax deductions, tax reductions, tax credits or econòmic incèntives, so when someone decides to restore and reuse his historic building, as owner he feels supported, also on an econòmic level…. ..I think that citizens must be encouraged by these policies. These buildings could remain as private houses or could be transfòrmed …. to make rooms for small startups or other similar functions…. but compatible with architectural qualities of historic buildings. As you can imagine….. this implies also a spirit of private inìtiative….. (top down + bottom up approach). This bring us back to the first question…. when renovation is focused on the recovery and reuse of buildings and abandoned spaces, cities gain in appeal …… so, re-using abàndoned buildings and selecting adàptive new use make possible to re-think links and connections engaging new relationships between buildings and open spaces/public spaces…. …….offering new opportunities for
- regeneration our cities,
- and activating new un-expected connections between the different parts of the city
…..If I have a few minutes, I would like to be more precise about Italy….
- As we know, the historical buildings can be a public or a private property, there are not difference…… If they have a high value, they are considered as monuments (for example an historical palace) and in these cases they are subject to protèctive restrictions…. it is only possible to do maintenance or restoration. It is impossible to demolish them; around them, other buildings and spaces are protected…
- Then, there are also historical buildings that are not monuments but they have a value that comes from their age or from the identity of the town in which they are (in my lecture I call them ordinary historical buildings), I’m thinking about the historical centre of Assisi, or of many other historical towns …here the monument is not every small house or building but the whole historical centre that includes private and public spaces…. or streets, squares, courtyards…. In these cases it is possible to do maintenance, restoration and only those interventions to improve the housing level.
- Answer to this question is difficult without possibility to give examples ….I could try to answer… but all I will say will be superficial….
- I think that…each place, each city has a different culture.. and we have different way to give value to our cultural heritage..
The terms we use for describing the work we do on historic buildings can be complex and confusing (to say the least). Adding to the ambiguity is the fact that the “Re” words can be defined differently, depending on the governing body we are working with, like historic preservation entities for our state, county, or local municipalities.
Thus, there are different types of “Re” work, Nine different types of work on historic buildings
1. Restoration, restoration is the process of returning a building or structure to its condition at a particular time
by using appropriate techniques of conservation …according the fundamental Restoration criteria:
- De-restoration, that is eliminate previous bad restorations
- Minimal intervention, .. we must not exceed with our intervention
- Compatibility, every intervention must be compatible with materials, techniques and architecture
- Reversibility, each intervention must be removable
- Distinguishability, we must be able to distinguish the original from the subsequent intervention
Then we have
2. Renovation
3. Rehabilitation
4. Remodel, Repair, Renew, Reconstruct, Recondition, and Adaptive Re-use
All this …. Are other way to work on a historic building in according to its main value
Thank you very much
