Aged Architecture: Conserving the layers of our cultural heritage

Abstract

This thesis engages in the discourse of historic preservation. The investigation analyzes the practice by several means. Understanding the different ways that preservation can be conducted is an important place to start, and the research challenges the current system. With the consideration of preservation’s philosophy, cultural values, economics, ecological concerns, and integration of new architecture with old, it gives a variety of points to this dissertation. There are both macro and micro versions of practice in preservation that have been investigated. The investigation tested ways to revitalize material, monument, and building. Many of the design elements were included in the design of the final product, a realization within a church ruin in Italy. A re-understanding of time and how it plays on culture played a large role in conducting the conversation of current practice in preservation and how it can enhance memory and story-telling within its context. A connection between aged architecture and those who inhabit it stirs from memories that fill the materials that built the architecture in the first place. The historic buildings that create the urban fabric are the continued story of humankind. Architecture can tell human history. Architecture can continue a dialogue that streamlines one’s connection to the past, but does not deny the changes that happen as cultures and people evolve. A need for a renewed understanding of history as a living entity is at the forefront. The idea that a place is not a fixed physical entity, but an organic one that is endlessly evolved and meant to be transformed.