The Needed Truth and Prometheus’ Chains, or how can Restoration Survive to the "Aging Time"?

Abstract

Structural Strengthening is often conceived as a boundary path in the practice of Restorers. The brief essay presented here, partly provocative, aims to stimulate the debate on the need to acquire responsibility in this field. The main assumption is the substantial coincidence between form and structure which can be retraced in historic masonry buildings: it derives from the mechanical properties of "masonry itself" as constructive material. Thus, empiricism can constitute the main instrument for historic building structural analysis: only careful reconstruction of recurrent damages, different reconstructions and constructive characteristics, can guarantee a satisfactory and reliable assessment on their stability and safety. A recovery of skills, including structural ones, is useful, especially now that the technical possibilities have exceeded the imagination of any designer. Only Restorers (and not simple structural engineers) can use this technical innovation in the most correct way. The challenge is harness it (with the chains of Prometheus), in order to ethically respect the past. Only a solid historical-constructive competence can guarantee it.