Preservation of plastered facades
The covering’s material of historical buildings is often considered a ‘expendable surface’, identified only
by his protective function. An element almost marked by an intrinsic temporariness, deprived of a proper
cultural significant. Instead, the covering material has the same historical value of the others construction’s
parts because it has been carried out in a way, with some components, representative of a specifical
historical, technical, aesthetic and cultural traditions. It has been modified, like the others, with the
taste of change in time, posing the same theoretical issue of the preservation of different temporal layers. But this component of the historical buildings, above all in the small urban centres, has been the more
subjected to removal or substitution interventions, compromising the authenticity of urban historical
heritage.
The essay shows some reflections on the more widespread interventions, and some preservation
experiences carried out in local contexts.
