About PRECOMOS
News!
Preventive Conservation challenges: PhD Seminar, 19-22 March 2012, Cuenca, Ecuador
Check details in our news page
Who?
The Raymond Lemaire International Centre for Conservation (RLICC) at the K.U.Leuven (Belgium) and Monumentenwacht Vlaanderen vzw (Belgium) are setting up a network of experts and practitioners in view of the application and establishment for a UNESCO chair on “preventive conservation, maintenance and monitoring of the monuments and sites”. The network aims at providing the diverse audience’s reflection on the framework of preventive conservation, so to support the activities of the establishing chair. Furthermore, its goal consists in establishing a forum for an active and updated exchange of the latest research results as well as on the needs and the feedback from the practice in fields related to preventive conservation.
Why?
The challenge identified in the conservation field today is about assuring heritage preservation through preventive conservation, maintenance and monitoring based strategies. Timely identification and correction of defects can prevent major consequential damage, which may lead to heavy investments in order to bring the listed or valuable non listed building back into a good state of repair. Monitoring systems allow public authorities, owners and site managers to ascertain that maintenance is carried out on a regular basis and that the budgets are spent effectively on the long run, also after restoration. When regular maintenance is carried out the annual maintenance costs of a historic building will be lower in the long run. As a result of systematic collection of information during the regular inspections (monitoring of the state of repair) it becomes possible to compare and monitor the constructional condition of the cultural heritage “stock”. Collected statistic data can also be used as a management tool as well as for research.
Experiences with conservation strategies based on preventive conservation, maintenance and monitoring in The Netherlands and in Flanders (Belgium), show that more people closely related to the heritage are given responsibility in the preservation process. Seen from that perspective civil society is given an important role in heritage preservation, contributing to a sustainable and culturally adapted development of the society at large.
Background
As a first step towards the identification of research and practices that can contribute to the establishing of an effective preventive conservation practice, an international seminar of experts, practitioners and young researchers was organized in June 2007 by the RLICC (Belgium) and the Institute International Fleuve et Patrimoine (France) in collaboration with 8 other European institutes. http://www.sprecomah.eu
The UNESCO Chair on preventive conservation, maintenance and monitoring of monuments and sites has been inaugurated at Leuven, 24/03/2009. Please see About the UNESCO Chair
Register as a member to the PRECOMOS website
We kindly invite you to join the PRECOMOS network and register as a member to this website. Simply by filling in your information, your membership will be activated with full access to the information in this website. As a platform of preventive conservation practice, you can discuss in the forum and share your files as library items. Join us now, and we look forward to our future collaboration.
What is preventive conservation?
Preventive conservation of monuments and sites as an approach can be applied on the practice of various sub-field of the conservation of built heritage. Please see the brief introduction of preventive conservation from the following files:
Current Preventive Conservation Approach: the PRECOMOS UNESCO Chair’s perspective (EN), presentation at Library of Congress, Washington DC, USA
La conservation préventive: une méthodologie d’approche basée sur le monitoring (FR), presentation at l´Université de Liège, Liège, Belgium