BRAU5 Itinerant Congress

PDF Button

Avramidou Nina, “The charm of decay of masonry buildings” (PDF, 1.3MB)

 

The Charm of Decay

The Itinerant Congress of BRAU5 deals with the degradation of a construction or artifact, monumental or of minor importance in its many material forms of decay and of its charm of its reacquired nature of only form and matter: proposals, hypotheses, case studies, good practices, interesting experiments and consolidated examples

The need to re-evaluate the importance of material degradation for Conservative and Restoration purposes also stems from the concept of “Architectural Good”, which has been shaped not in an idealistic sense referring only to the crucial events experienced by the building, but more complex, open to the study of society as a whole and also attentive to aspects of material culture.

By stripping the building of all its completion works (roofing, various coatings, installations, etc.), it loses the function for which it was designed and built and returns to its simply formal and constructive expression. In this way it is discovered that the vestiges of such buildings or artefacts, in disuse and degradation, are immortal, outside the rules and the flow of events. And this is their charm…

Sub-Themes

Partially Degraded Buildings

  • Conservation technologies of parts of the degradation of the facades of historic masonry buildings, which preserve historical memory
  • Evaluation of the visual perceptual importance of the degradation of the facades of historic buildings, to be preserved
  • Restoration projects of minor architectural facades in small historic centers, keeping intact the “historical memory” of the habitat to which it belongs.

Advanced Degraded Constructions and Artifacts

  • Re-cycling of the ruins for recreational purposes: exhibitions, promotional fairs, discos, children’s games, etc.
  • Redevelop the environment and landscape with the recovery, reuse and re-cycle of unused buildings and areas
  • Re-cycling the ruins to create historic routes
  • Incorporate, transform, relocate pieces or entire parts of existing buildings into new buildings

Ghost Towns

  • Social and economic requalification of abandoned settlements, through integrated approaches: landscape design, architecture, historical and sociological research, production and energy management of resources, data computing
  • Sanctuaries or reconversion? New models of contemporaneity
  • National and international reconversion policies

Degraded Suburbs

  • The charm of the degraded suburbs, free from the weight of historicization and imposed conservation
  • Spaces chosen for cultural changes