Far Eastern University 1ST Semester 2024-2025

Institute of Architecture and Fine Arts

Module 1: Introduction to Architectural Heritage Conservation

Module 1.1: Definition and background

Module Information

Module Overview

This module covers the definition of Conservation and Principles of Architectural Heritage
Conservation.

What is Architectural Heritage Conservation?

The process of restoring, conserving, and managing changes of a heritage site in a manner
that sustains and enhances its significance, the possibility of restoring buildings rather than
replacing them, is heightened, for the sake of this preservation. -ARCHDAILY

Classification of the world heritage presented by the UNESCO

Architectural Heritage
The expression of “architectural heritage” shall be considered to comprise the following
permanent properties:
• Monuments: They are referred to all the buildings and structures of conspicuous
historical, archaeological, artistic, scientific, social, or technical interest including
their fixtures and fittings;
• Groups of buildings: The homogeneous groups of urban or rural buildings
conspicuous for their historical, archaeological, artistic, scientific, social, or
 Far Eastern University 1ST Semester 2024-2025
Institute of Architecture and Fine Arts

technical interest, which are sufficiently coherent to form the topographically

definable units;
• Sites: They are referred to the combined works of man and nature, the areas, which
are partially built upon and sufficiently distinctive and homogeneous to be
topographically definable and are of conspicuous historical, archaeological,
artistic, scientific, social, or technical interest.

Architectural Conservation
Regarding conserving the heritage to have an embodied reality for its interpretation, it has
been attempted to understand and interpret the heritage in order to show how the world was
like before us
Conservation means protection and maintenance
Architectural conservation means to conserve the valuable architectures or architectural
values. Since the formation of architecture, its conservation and restoration have been
considered as a principle.
Prior to the eighteenth century, in most cases of religious buildings, conservation measures
were based on the religious beliefs, and in some cases, on logical foundations where the
maintenance and repair were less costly than the replacement and reconstruction
In general, conservation is classified into two levels: conservation of the physical aspects and
semantic aspects
Conservation of the physical aspects related to the “profession and knowledge of the
restoration” is a set of measures that rely on improving the tangible conditions, whether
through a direct intervention leading to the manipulation of the physics and materials or
through an indirect intervention leading to manipulation of the surroundings or changing the
influential factors of the historic building. According to the New Zealand Charter, there are
various degrees of intervention including (i) preservation, through stabilization, maintenance,
or repair; (ii) restoration, through reassembly, reinstatement, or removal; (iii) reconstruction;
and (iv) adaptation. Also, any intervention reducing or compromising the value of the
architectural heritage is undesirable and should not occur.
According to the Nara Charter, conservation of the semantic aspects is rooted in the
identification of the introduced heritage values, the conservation of which depends on the
ability to understand the intangible values. According to the 1999 Burra Charter, conservation
is a set of measures enabling a person to achieve the values, meanings, messages, and
concepts latent in the heritage spaces.

Value Assessment

Value assessment plays a key role in all the architectural heritage-related measures; as
Fielden points out, the first step in the conservation process is setting a goal and then
prioritizing the values in the building to understand and convey the message of the work
[8Links to an external site.]. Today, recognition and expression of the values latent in the work
are of special importance in the conservation of architectural heritage and value is one of the
determinants of validity and importance in the special topics related to the science of
conservation playing a very important role in developing the conservation policies. In general,
any conservation activity takes place when an object or place is valuable and therefore,
 Far Eastern University 1ST Semester 2024-2025
Institute of Architecture and Fine Arts

decision-making on treatment and intervention in the work depends on these values. Some
values take precedence over the others in making a decision about the thing or aspect that
needs to conserved. For example, Nara Temples in Japan are demolished and rebuilt every
20 years. As a result, it is not possible to preserve the values by conserving the materials, and
preserving the craft skills and intangible values must be considered. There is a deliberately
cyclic relationship between the conservation and value, in which the materials and physical
aspects undergo the complete changes and are destroyed to preserve a particular type of
intangible values.
The first step in the conservation process of the built heritage is identifying and prioritizing the
existing values. Regarding the prioritization of the architectural heritage values, two general
cases can be considered: Works have one or two values and it is very easy to prioritize them
and Works have multiple and varied values and prioritizing the values will become a necessity.
Del and Tabrizi categorized the values into two groups: physical and semantic. In their studies,
they addressed only the physical values influencing the architectural conservation and the
values influencing the semantic conservation were not analyzed and discussed. Therefore,
the main question of the present study is as follows:
What are the values influencing the semantic conservation of the architectural
heritage?
In the scientific research on the architectural heritage, one or more semantic values have been
considered and studied as an effective value in the process of semantic conservation.
However, in these studies, all the influential values in the semantic conservation process have
not been mentioned comprehensively. Therefore, one cannot have a clear understanding of
the semantic values involved in the conservation process. Accordingly, the main objective of
this study is comprehensively investigating the semantic values determined by the
researchers and experts in the field of the architectural heritage conservation.