Shelters, as preventive conservation methods, have traditionally been considered a better option than leaving the site exposed. However, there has been limited research on their effect on the preservation of heritage materials and, as a result, there is no clear scientific evidence to support sheltering. This study aims to provide the first rigorous scientific assessment of the effect of lightweight, open shelters on limestone deterioration at archaeological sites. A method based on the use of low-cost environmental monitoring equipment and limestone blocks and tablets (as indicators of decay) has been developed to determine the degree of protection provided by the shelters at the Bishop' Palace (Witney, England) and Hagar Qim (Malta). Preliminary visual assessments of the field sites were followed by 12-18 month exposure trials. Temperature extremes and fluctuations, frost events, relative humidity extremes and fluctuations, NaCl crystallisation events, solar radiation, wetting events, salt content, atmospheric pollutants and dust deposition were monitored. In addition, stone decay was studied by analysing changes in weight, elasticity, surface hardness, ultrasonic pulse velocity, surface colour, moisture content and general appearance (microscopic and macroscopic pictures) in stone samples. An exhaustive assessment of the shelter at the Bishop's Palace was carried out using Chalk, Cotswold and Portland limestone blocks as well as Portland limestone tablets (specifically for studying dissolution, soiling and biological growth). Additionally, a comparative assessment of the effects of the two shelters in contrasting climatic environments, the Bishop's Palace (temperate maritime) and Hagar Qim (Mediterranean), was undertaken by monitoring Globigerina and Coralline limestone blocks simultaneously at both sites. The research has shown that lightweight, open shelters do not exclude decay completely but minimise it. However, there are some areas at higher risk of decay, i.e. top parts of the walls and the periphery. In addition, problems with the shelter design can enhance some decay mechanisms, such as biocolonisation on the periphery at the Bishop's Palace and dust deposition under the shelter at Hagar Qim. Therefore, the effectiveness of shelters should not be assumed.

A tese \"Antigo e novo nas intervenções em preexistências históricas: a experiência brasileira (1980-2010)\", vem pautada na reflexão dos recentes diálogos entre antigo e novo, permanência e inovação, preservação e mudança, que fazem parte do cenário da produção arquitetônica contemporânea em que se assiste, cada vez mais, edifícios antigos tornaremse parte de uma nova história da cidade. Observa-se que o que deveria ser exceção tornou-se prática constante no cenário da arquitetura atual: em um monumento de valor histórico e artístico nem sempre se tem como objetivo, em uma intervenção, preservar o seu protagonismo e transmiti-lo em sua essência para o futuro; nem sempre seus valores estéticos e suas características históricas são respeitados; nem sempre a intervenção tem como foco o monumento, mas sim a projetação do novo associada a ele. E o que deveria ser a prática usual virou exceção. Cada vez mais encontramos intervenções na preexistência que se distanciam do rigor metodológico do restauro. Com variadas denominações - restauro, reabilitação, readequação, revitalização, reciclagem -, as ações de intervenção operam sempre com a dimensão do tempo: o tempo de vida do monumento; o tempo durante o qual ele foi submetido à degradação; as sucessivas camadas de tempo que a ele foram acrescentadas pelas transformações por que passou; e o tempo que lhe resta como monumento vivo. A fim de esclarecer essas e outras questões decorrentes dessa abordagem, busca-se investigar como se articulam as premissas teóricas e os critérios de projeto adotados nas intervenções em edifícios de valor histórico e artístico - onde julgamos encontrar-se o cerne do problema - a partir do pensamento italiano de restauro, tendo como base, em especial, os princípios da Carta de Veneza para a análise das características e dos procedimentos utilizados nas intervenções sobre preexistências históricas no Brasil nas últimas décadas. Foram estabelecidas oito tendências de intervenção mais recorrentes em um conjunto de obras analisadas, criando-se grupos com características semelhantes entre si, não totalmente rígidos e fechados, mas que, de alguma forma, pudessem facilitar a leitura das obras e caracterizar o panorama de intervenções no Brasil em relação ao campo disciplinar de restauro. Pretende-se promover a reflexão sobre esse tipo específico de produção ainda recente no Brasil e avaliar como essas intervenções se aproximam, ou não, do campo disciplinar de restauro. Portanto, tomando como referência uma série de obras pré-selecionadas, a intenção deste trabalho é averiguar as posturas, as características e os procedimentos que têm direcionado as intervenções em preexistências históricas no Brasil. O objetivo é analisar as escolhas feitas, verificando quais as tendências e posturas recorrentes e como elas dialogam com os procedimentos atuais sobre o restauro no campo internacional. Procurou-se avaliar a postura e procedimento de projeto a partir da excepcionalidade do monumento como objeto isolado e em seu contexto urbano, a sua função original, a sua destinação de uso, seus aspectos simbólicos e seus detalhes significativos. Dessa forma, foi possível aprofundar o estudo e caracterização de cada uma das tendências de intervenção. Para compreender o cenário brasileiro no que diz respeito à valorização de seu patrimônio e a materialização de quais valores, quais critérios e como os desafios da intervenção e conservação dos monumentos preexistentes são consumados na prática e, principalmente, como a palavra \"restauro\" vem sendo empregada na atualidade, foram analisadas, a partir de uma amostragem reduzida, 32 estudos de caso. / The Thesis \"Old and new in the interventions in historical preexistence : the Brazilian experience (1980-2010)\", has guided us to reflect on the recent dialogue between old and new, permanence and innovation, preservation and change: aspects that are part of the contemporary architectural production scenery, where, at increasingly fast pace, old buildings have become part of a new history of the city. We can observe that what should be exception has become constant practice in current architecture: in an intervention of a monument of artistic and historical value for instance, not always it is the main objective to preserve its role and pass on its essence to the future, not even its aesthetical values and its historical characteristics are always respected, not always is the intervention focused on the monument itself, but rather on the projecting related to it. What should be usual practice has become exception. We find interventions on the preexistence that move away from the methodological rigor of restoring. Known as - restoration, rehabilitation, readjustment, revitalization, recycling - the actions of interventions always operate in relation with time: the life-time of the monument, the time during which it was submitted to degradation, the successive layers of time that were added to it along its transformations and the time left as a living monument. In order to clarify these and other issues on the matter, it is important to investigate the theoretical assumptions and criteria related to the projects adopted in the interventions on the buildings of historical and artistic value - which are, from my point of view, the core of the matter - starting from the Italian art of restoring, bearing in mind the principles of the Venice Charter for a better understanding of the characteristics and the procedures adopted in the interventions of historical preexistence in Brazil in the last decades. Eight trends of mostly recurrent interventions among a group of analyzed works were established: groups with similar characteristics, not totally strict and closed in order to enable the understanding of the works and characterize the range of interventions in Brazil related to restoring. We would like to promote reflection about this specific type of production still recent here in Brazil and to assess how these interventions come close or not to the disciplinary field known as restoring. Therefore, taking as reference a pre-selected group of works, our objective is to ascertain the attitudes, the characteristics and the procedures that lead to the interventions on the historical preexistence in Brazil. Our goal is to analyze the choices that were made, assessing the recurrent trends and attitudes and how they interact with the modern procedures in international restoring. We assessed the attitude and the procedure of the project considering the monument`s exceptionality: its essence of isolated object within the urban context, its original function, its usefulness, its symbolic features and its significant details. Thereby, it has been possible to deepen the study and characterization of each one of the trends in the intervention. For a better understanding of the Brazilian scenery in terms of appreciation of its heritage and materialization of which values, criteria and how the challenges in the intervention and conservation of the preexistent monuments are put in practice and, mainly, how the term \"restoring\" is currently used, we have analyzed 32 study cases.

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1978 A55 / Master of Science

Riparian vegetation is one of the most complex and abundant ecosystems in the world and it provides important ecosystem services. These services are affected by electricity production from hydropower dams. Hydropower accounts for 16% of the global electricity production and almost 50% in Sweden. One effect of hydropower is sub-daily fluctuations of water level caused by the turbines being turned on and off according to electricity demand. This is referred to as hydropeaking and has largely unknown effects on the fluvial ecosystem, and especially on the riparian vegetation. No studies have been made on the effects of hydropeaking on riparian vegetation. In this study, three native plants (Carex acuta, Betula pubescens and Salix phylicifolia x myrsinifolia) and one non-native plant (Helianthus annuus) were used as indicators (i.e., phytometers) for the effects of hydropeaking along two rivers from northern Sweden; one used for hydropower production and the other free flowing. From each of the four species, seedlings of two sizes and seeds were transplanted into five different river reaches and bank elevations along a hydropeaking gradient from none to high hydropeaking intensity. C. acuta and S. phylicifolia x myrsinifolia showed significant positive relationships to the hydropeaking gradient, likely due to their natural high tolerance to frequent inundation events. Therefore, they are suitable for restoration of river shores along reaches affected by hydropeaking. In contrast, B. pubescens was negatively related to the hydropeaking gradient, losing leaves and biomass with increasing hydropeaking intensities. It turned out to be the most sensitive species among the ones used in the experiment making it suitable as an indicator. H. annuus showed no response and therefore did not serve as impact indicator or for restoration. Germination for all native species was significantly lower along the reaches affected by hydropeaking which indicates a strong connection between hydropeaking and germination. These findings showed that recruitment becomes a bottleneck in riparian communities’ conservation along rivers affected by hydropeaking, and highlight the importance of mitigation actions focused on favoring riparian species seeds’ germination.

The present thesis is a critical introduction to a body of writings on heritage conservation by the Czech-born art historian Max Dvořák (1874–1921). From 1905 onwards, Dvořák was both professor of art history at the University of Vienna and Conservator General at the state institution responsible for heritage conservation in Austria: the ‘Royal and Imperial Central Commission for the Research and Preservation of Artistic and Historical Monuments’ (est. 1850). His published and archival texts on the subject are presented here for the first time in English translation. In this sense, the thesis follows the model of existing scholarship on the visual arts in Vienna around 1900, namely the combined English translations and critical introductions to the writings of Camillo Sitte (Collins & Collins, 1986), Otto Wagner (Mallgrave, 1988) and Alois Riegl (Forster & Ghirardo, 1982). A translation-based approach to foreign textual sources is essential to cross-cultural understanding in the study of art and architectural history, particularly in the case of German, which is no longer accessible to the great majority of scholars working in these fields. As an introduction to Dvořák’s Denkmalpflege, this thesis provides the historical context necessary for an informed reading of the texts and, on this basis, evaluates his considerable contribution to the conservation of Austrian cultural heritage. The institutional history of the Central Commission and the emergence of modern conservation theory around the turn of the century are outlined as the preconditions of Dvořák’s activity, which included inventorization, institutional reform, published propaganda and a number of case-specific polemics. His responses to conservation issues in Vienna and Split are analyzed in detail as representative case studies from the centre and periphery of the empire, where modern conservationists were fighting a battle on two fronts against the incursions of modernity on the one hand and the destructive practices of nineteenth-century restoration on the other. Dvořák’s close collaboration with the Austrian heir apparent Franz Ferdinand is then investigated, followed by a critique of his reaction to the devastation of the First World War. In each case, it is argued that the state administration of cultural heritage in late Habsburg Austria, with its diverse peoples, languages and histories, was an inherently political issue and part of a cultural effort to preserve the empire itself.

No description available.

Chronicles was composed in the postexilic period when the Jews were without their own king and were living under the rule of the Persian Empire and the Greek dynasties of the Ptolemies and Seleucids. In view of the apparently eternal nature of the Davidic covenant (2 Sam 7:11b-16), this loss of sovereignty would have posed a difficult problem for the Jews. To be sure, Zerubbabel, grandson of Jehoiachin, penultimate king of the Davidic kingdom, was appointed as governor of Yehud by the Persian king Darius (Hag 1:1) and received YHWH’s promise of being his ‘signet ring’ (Hag 2:23); however, he could not and did not re-establish the kingdom of David. When the Jews lost their political leadership in the postexilic period, religious personnel appeared to play an increasingly important role as leaders of the Temple centered community. Along with Zerubbabel, Joshua, the high priest of the Jewish community that had returned from the exile, led the project of rebuilding the Temple (Hag 1:1; Ezra 3:2). The book of Chronicles reflects this Temple-centered community and deals in much detail with issues relating to the cultic personnel. The two main figures in Chronicles, David and Solomon, are presented respectively as the one who prepares (1 Chr 22; 28:1-29:20), and the one who completes (2 Chr 2:1-5:1) the Temple building project. Furthermore, the Chronicler evaluates the Judaic kings who reigned after Solomon in relation to their piety and their service in the Temple.5 Those who were considered ‘good’ kings worshipped God in the Temple according to the divine commandment, diligently repairing and restoring the Temple, whereas those who were considered ‘bad’ kings were negligent in their worship of YHWH and in their preservation of the Temple. In the context of this postexilic Temple-centred cultic society, the question may be asked: Does the Chronicler hope for the revival of the Davidic kingdom in view of the seemingly and eternally binding, unconditional Davidic covenant (2 Sam 7:12-16; 1 Chr 17:11-14), or is he satisfied with its replacement by the postexilic, Temple-centered cultic society?.

This thesis focuses on virtual restorative environments – specifically, the way that natural environments have been created in a virtual context to elicit beneficial effects on restoration and stress recovery. As the field of restorative environment research is mostly concerned with studying the environment itself, the interaction between participant and environment tends to consist of open exploration, and other ways to interact are often overlooked. The aim of this thesis was therefore to construct a virtual restorative environment with an additional possibility to interact, and to explore how the interaction is connected to a virtual environment’s perceived restorativeness. To gain deeper understanding about how different people perceived the virtual environments, the experiment was conducted using qualitative measures such as questionnaires, open questions and interviews. The results indicate that the perception of a virtual environment’s restorativeness is a very subjective matter, as the individual differences between the participants affected the way that they perceived the environments.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Conservation / Master / Master of Science in Conservation

published_or_final_version / abstract / Conservation / Master / Master of Science in Conservation