funding conservation works innovative strategies for programs and techniques

Funding Conservation WorksInnovative Strategies for Programs and Techniques Stefano Della Torre

Seminario informativo sul settore del restauro in Italia

Leipzig, 22 November 2012

Prof. Stefano Della Torre

Outline

• Restoration as a supply chain• Reduction of public spending• New financial strategies • Competitive funding procedures• Programming restoration: use value, long-term vision, externalities of

technologies• Taking profit of new technologies in the frame of “creativity” as an

engine for regional development


Restoration as a supply chain

• In Italy conservation works go under strict regulations enforced by State offices (Soprintendenze)

• In general they aim at material authenticity, therefore requiring specialized professionals and side activities (survey, diagnostics…)

• They used to have an important turnover



• During 2005/2007 in Italy the turnover of the sector was about € 2.000.000.000,00 per year, involving works for private owners, esteemed as 20-25% of the whole amount .

• This amount is the basis for computing the product made by professionals (architects, engineers, surveyors…), which counts for about 15%, not included in previously given amounts.

• Roughly speaking, these figures entail 22000 jobs in building sector, 3.000 jobs in technical professions.

• Scientific diagnostics counts for a little and very variable rate, from 0,5 to 5 % of the amount of the works. This means a number of jobs for conservation scientists which can vary from 50 to 500.



• This budget has to be appreciated also for its “quality”: it means return on investments, less waste, higher skills hired…

• We can assume that the percentage of investment in scientific investigations is an indicator of quality in restoration process. The number of jobs for scientists (i.e. high intellectual capital) could increase by 10 times just by requiring more diagnostics and scientific support, that is easy when fixing criteria for financing projects.

• These issues become more and more relevant in front of a reduction of public spending


Reduction of public spending

• Most historic rehabilitation initiatives in Italy have been funded by public resources (often matching grants from EU or from private grant-making foundations)

• The reduction of the budgets of public bodies (Municipalities…) implies that it will be more and more difficult to finance public works in general, and also works on historic properties

A twofold strategy is ongoing:• Reinforce the reasons why to spend (public) money for conservation;• Set up new strategies to make the process more efficient (preventive

conservation, ICT…)



• The sector can be shrunk, but if you get rid of maintenance and preventive conservation, you will soon or later pay much more (and Italy is a seismic country!)

Mantua, S. Barbara’s belltower under quake



• The sector can be shrunk, but if you get rid of maintenance and preventive conservation, you will soon or later pay much more (and Italy is a seismic country!)

L’Aquila, Basilica di CollemaggioL’Aquila, Chiesa delle Anime Sante


New financial strategies

• In Italian tradition culture and antiques are conceived inside the public sphere

• Scarcity of resources forced to open to various forms of partnership with private players: sponsors, entrepreneurs, renters…

Among the practices which are getting customary:• Technical sponsorship: the sponsors do not give money, but they

provide the works done• Project financing: the property is given to a private user (for a time to

be decided) in order to have conservation works done

• In both cases, the enterprise which aims at doing the work has to match new requirements and to find its competitive advantage in new kinds of alliances and financial networking


Sponsored works:Milan, Spanish Walls

Technical sponsorship: TMC provided the development of the restoration project by a team of architects and the works carried out by Gasparoli srl, under the supervision of the Soprintendenza and Milan Municipality


Project financing

Monza, Villa Reale: Currently in Italy perhaps the biggest and most controversial restoration carried on through a project financing deal


Competitive funding procedures

• The scarcity of resources forces to set up competitive procedures in order to decide which interventions are the best

• Then the problem turns into choosing criteria: the best for which purpose?


Wide-area projects 13

• Restorations are funded under the condition that they have been arranged in the frame of wide-area projects

• The aim is to set up sustainable management plans, taking into account the economic performances of restored sites, seen as belonging to nets and territorial systems.

• This trend works for integrated conservation paradigms, as well as for a long-term vision in conservation.

• By this way managerial culture came into preservation practice • These comprehensive projects often implement a “triple helix” model,

or refer to the idea of creative clusters


Wide area projects: the criteria

An example: “Distretti culturali” in Lombardy Region.

The main features are: • there are grants and rules, • restorations (what people are supposed to want) funded as they are

carefully planned taking into account quality (including qualification of the technicians and the contractors)

• planned conservation after works, • management system, • exploitation of networking as a tool to enhance human and territorial

capital

The criteria selected the interventions able to create value because of:- Use value of the building in the future local system;- Long-term vision (management plan, planned conservation) - Externalities of implemented technologies


A turnover

“Distretti Culturali” project is ongoing and currently it makes a number of people work in different positions

Most of them are improving their skills.

The challenge for everybody is also to change mind about the link Economy-Culture.

We are going beyond the vision that the problem is just to collect money to pay conservation costs.

We are going beyond the vision that Heritage makes money directly (hard to endorse).

We are exploring the thesis that Heritage preservation activities can empower a region as well as its economy, provided they are carried on aiming at opening minds

It’s a turnover: from an economic empowerment of Culture to a cultural empowerment of Economy.

In other words, Heritage may create the “learning environment” where innovation can be developed .


The case of the Florence Restoration district

Florence is perhaps the most famous Art city in the world; this means a local economy boosted by tourism, but rich also in educational and restoration activities


Florentine Cultural Cluster was a favorable milieu for R&D in Laser Industry

Laser Medecine had the chance to develop everywhere, why just under the shadow of Brunelleschi’s dome?The answer is that Florentine preservation cluster has been crucial in giving opportunities to research on Laser techniques, aiding development in all the fields, not only restoration.Brunelleschi now is used a brand for the laser conference, but during the R&D period a lot of research grants earned as a support to Heritage field supported scientific research as a whole


Historic Preservation as an infrastructure for development

Historic preservation can be seen as an infrastructure for social and economic development according to the models of Knowledge Economy

Source: Lazzeretti, Capone, Cinti 2010: Technological innovation in creative clusters. The case of laser in conservation of artworks in Florence, IERMB Working Paper in Economics, nº10.02, April 2010


Learning from traditional practices and crafts

• Traditional crafts are crucial to preventive conservation where they are still alive

• Where tradition has broken down, there are risks and opportunities• Opportunities: learning “green” solutions from the world before

industrialization• Risks: crafts which still look traditional changed their soul, so that

now they may carry on “invented traditions” which are far from being sustainable.


Learning from traditional practices and crafts – Example 1

Historic natural ventilation system in the Hofburg and inspired project in Schönbrunn Castle (Käferhaus 2007)


Learning from traditional practices and crafts – Example 2

Stone slabs roofs in Aosta Valley. Remaking traditional roofs with stone slabs is enforced by local regulations and supported by incentives, as stone roofs are typical of Alpine landscape

But two different techniques are used


The ancient technique

Small local slabs, not regular in shape, coming from local quarries.

Reuse of slabs is possible, the service life of a slab may be even two centuries

The roof cannot be insulated.

Annual maintenance is required.


The “drop-shape” technique

Huge slabs coming from abroad (by railway).

No salvage of old slabs.

Slabs nailed on wooden planking (insulation).

Seldom maintenance (remake).


Regulations

Regulation (R.L. 13/2007) give a plus for- Full substitution of the roof (less money if the owner changes only a

part of the materials)- Stone quality, evaluated by means of laboratory tests

The actual behaviour of stones is different, and it is worthy to remark that local stones behave better than they are assessed by Lab tests.


Can materials for traditional building in Italy come from Nepal?

“Drop-shape” dates back just to 1950s, as stones useful for this kind of work can not be mined locally. In the matter of fact they come from Spain, Greece, Norway and Nepal. Aosta railway station now has an area devoted to such a globalized movement of stone slabs.


Prevention, Tradition, Innovation: Learning and Unlearning

Somebody should question about the carbon footprint of Aosta regulations, born by “culturally correct” concerns for landscape and workmanship, but now turned into a dissipation factor. They are misleading as they encourage the abandon of maintenance and the waste of materials.

An advanced work of criticism is needed to unlearn what has been vitiated by industrial and commercial attitudes, to discover again the sense of authentic tradition, and to revive old know-how.

By this way it will be possible to match “green” requirements concerning embodied energy.


What is needed to work in restoration field in Italy in the years to come?

• Qualification (expertise, ability, management…)• Openness to high technologies (restoration techniques, ICT…)• Openness to green technologies• Openness to “new” financial processes (technical sponsorships,

project financing…)• Networking (with enterprises, research centres, universities…)• Attitude to communicate (open building sites, educational activities…)• Readiness to “new” activities (preventive conservation, data filing…)

funding conservation works innovative strategies for programs and techniques

Documents

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