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Friday, December 17, 2021 at 07:00 p.m.

Objective: protect the past

The IV Heritage Conservation Seminar returns to the URJC on December 17. Held remotely, it will deal with the complex issue of conservation versus renovation.

With the passage of time, the preservation of cultural heritage becomes an increasingly acute issue. The need for its conservation, or its renovation, is a matter of great concern for a country with an important historical legacy. Analyze your current status, its future and the problems that may arise is the objective of the IV Heritage Conservation Seminar. The meeting is held today, December 17, at 11 am in virtual format; and it is open to the entire university community, from students of different grades to PDI and PAS staff.  

The central focus of this edition is the "dichotomy between the need to preserve historic buildings versus renovation as an unavoidable issue", according to Professor Elisa Bailliet Fernández who, together with Professor Raquel Martínez Gutiérrez, organizes the event. She explains that it is an issue that comes up with great recurrence in the field of architecture. "Every time an architect faces a project in a historic building (regardless of whether it has been declared an Asset of Cultural Interest, which is the maximum protection, or not), they consciously decide how they will intervene," says Elisa Bailliet. “This decision is based on an exhaustive historical, architectural and social knowledge of the building.”

The seminar consists of a series of talks, each lasting 30 minutes, with a round of questions. After these, a discussion table will be opened, in order to give voice to the public that attends the event. Among the doctoral speakers are Esperanza Marrodán, professor at the School of Architecture of the University of Navarra and collaborator at the University of IUAV in Venice; Verónica Sánchez, co-founder of n'NUNDO and the n'OT technical office; and Fernando Cobos, member of the ICOMOS International Scientific Committee on Fortifications and Military Heritage (ICOFORT).

This meeting has aroused great interest in the public. It has 130 students enrolled from different areas beyond the Architecture degree, such as tourism, fine arts and ADE, among others. "In a certain sense, this fact responds to the reality that the conservation of Cultural Heritage, since it is a multidisciplinary task, is an issue that concerns us all", says Elisa Bailliet. She also points out that the participation of students from different branches of knowledge has also occurred in previous editions.

The Heritage Conservation Seminars began in 2018, as a result of the concern about the impact that tourism may have on historical sites. The meetings have not stopped during the pandemic, but have been held remotely. Previous editions dealt with the conservation of intangible values ​​through intervention and preventive conservation as a transversal method.