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| Issue 6 Home | Editorial | Features | Regular Columns | News & Events | Misc. | ||
By Miloš Drdácký and Jan Válek - February 2002
Miloš Drdácký and Jan Válek report on ARCCHIP [1], a Centre of Excellence Project supported by the European Community. The project uses workshops as a way of exchanging knowledge, primarily on the complexity of problems of safeguarding cultural heritage including its social and economic aspects, documentation, interpretation, presentation, degradation and protection, between EU and CEE countries. ARCCHIP [1] facilitates new contacts, projects and networks.
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Civil engineering and architecture are the main fields of application for research results of the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ITAM) [2] of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. This tradition is now more than eighty years old, during this time increased attention has been paid to safeguarding the built heritage and its integration into the life of contemporary society. The complexity of problems of safeguarding cultural heritage calls for modern interdisciplinary approaches which have been implemented in a systematic way since 1995 by the foundation of a new department in the Institute – the Associated Research Centre for Historic Structures and Sites – joining together researchers from two institutes of the Academy of Sciences. The process has continued, because of success in grant project competitions and now even more scientists from other research institutes and universities are involved into this research. There are two research units, one in Prague and another in Telc. Since 2000, ITAM [2] has been supported by the EC 5th Research Framework as one of the Czech Centres of Excellence through ARCCHIP.
ARCCHIP programme [1] consists of five groups of work packages:
Workshops ARIADNE (Advanced Research Initiation Assisting and Developing Networks in Europe) are a week long working meetings for experts from the EU and ECC countries. The topics of these workshops are highly relevant to the needs of current cultural heritage requirements for their protection. Some previous and upcoming workshops include:
A01 Social and economic integration of cultural heritage April 23-29, 2001
A02 Cultural heritage in local and regional social and economic stability May 9-15, 2001
A03 Cultural heritage in urban areas June 11-17, 2001
A04 Vulnerability of cultural heritage to hazards and prevention measures Aug. 18-24, 2001
A05 Documentation, interpretation, presentation and publication of CH. September 1-7, 2001
A06 Degradation of cultural heritage in surrounding environment October 20-26, 2001
A07 Indoor climate and tourism effects November 12-18, 2001
A08 Biodegradation of cultural heritage December 10-16, 2001
A09 Historic materials and their diagnostics February 4-10, 2002
A10 New materials for safeguarding cultural heritage April 22-28, 2002
A11 Historic structures May 20-26, 2002
A12 New technologies for safeguarding cultural heritage June 1-7, 2002
The structure of the workshops is based on position papers of invited top specialists with the aim of elaborating on state of the art conclusions and to clearly formulating the most up-to-date problems in the area. These documents and profound discussions are utilised for establishment of core networks in the selected areas. These networks are established in order to enable continuous co-operation and mutual information on the topics under discussion and creation of a virtual international centre for cultural heritage research.
METEOR (Medium Term Educational Opportunity and Research) is a 2 week training course consisting of clusters of up-to-date problems provided by the Institute with support of leading experts from EU and CEE countries and is intended for participants mostly from CEE countries. The training sessions are completed with a possibility of 3 months stays for research students and researchers who can be housed by the Centre (ARCCHIP) and participate on its on-going research projects.
TACITUS programme (Twining Arrangements and Research with Co-operating Institutions and Universities) enables visits or stays for research students or researchers from the EU or CEE countries in any of the co-operating institutions.
The preferred research topics involve environmental effects on cultural heritage objects and diagnostics of their integrity damages (e.g. investigation of local failures and damages, monitoring, remote sensing and deterioration of structural integrity, warning systems, loading spectra from technological seismicity and tourism), planning and management tools for historic cities and territories (e.g. methodology of safeguarding planning for historic sites, documentation and information systems for small historic cities – GIS based, micro-regional concept of territorial and urban planning, ICT in spatial evaluation of historic cities), historic structures and materials under repeated loading (e.g. behaviour of historic carpentry timber joints of roof frameworks, fatigue behaviour of historic stones under repeated action of forces or restricted volumetric changes), survey of historic paintings by means of modern non-invasive methods (e.g. detection of delaminated parts of historic lime plasters by means of differential vibration sensitivity and/or thermal conductivity), new materials for conservation and methods for testing historic materials (e.g. small sampling techniques and testing of historic materials – namely mortar, stone and wood, mechanical characteristics of historic materials and influence of consolidation, fibre reinforced mortars for repair and safeguarding of art monuments), fibre plastics composite and net reinforcement for historic masonry.
PATRIMONIA, HESTIA and GOLEM are aimed to enlarge scope of results with a wide practical application
PATRIMONIA is aiming at the rise of cultural heritage awareness of people and understanding heritage protection as a part of total environmental protection. It is a project for youth which concentrates on cultural heritage in the relations between people, between mankind and nature and between people and technology as a message for and source of approaches to sustainable development.
HESTIA (Heritage for Economic and Social Stability and International Adhesion) is designed to prepare pilot programmes based on regional and micro-regional traditions, resources and technologies in order to ensure economic and social stability and sustainability of small historic cities.
GOLEM (Gradually Optimised Low Energy Materials for construction in the CEEC) is intended to prepare pilot programmes based on traditional eco-efficient technologies and to increase awareness of citizens to cultural heritage and create a basis for small regional industry.
Eight workshops A01-A08 from the aforementioned list were organized in 2001. At those workshops 58 scientists participated from 16 EC countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom), 58 scientists from 13 Associated countries (Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia) and 5 researchers from 4 Mediterranean countries (Bosnia Herzegovina, Israel, Tunisia, Turkey).
During the workshops, there emerged many common themes for further research in the field of cultural heritage, which are of a great relevance to all European countries and which have a high importance and strong impact on European economic and social development and stability. In conclusion despite of some national research funding in individual European countries, many problems are to be solved effectively and competently only through international co-operation.
The workshops as well as being an opportunity for active participation of the ARCCHIP Director at several international events were therefore oriented towards future development of the European Research Area and the scientific activities in the field of cultural heritage. As an example, the declaration from the first workshop, which was sent to representatives of the EU Parliament, is presented here:
“As participants in the ARCCHIP workshop [1], held in the Czech Republic during April 2001, we would like to make representations about the Draft 6th Framework Programme. The workshop in Prague brought together representatives from 15 European countries, including 7 associated countries. The purpose of the workshop was to discuss the possibilities for research into the cultural heritage under the current 5th Framework document, particularly the topic of economic and social benefits of cultural heritage. The workshop has demonstrated that this topic is of very great relevance to Europe. Understanding of cultural heritage is central to European identity.
Having noticed that the draft of the forthcoming 6th Framework Programme document does not mention cultural heritage, we are afraid that research into the cultural heritage will be discontinued. Without such research, all of us will lose an opportunity to strengthen European unity.
Therefore, we would like to recommend that the forthcoming 6th Framework Programme includes:
The contents and priorities of the new 6th Framework Programme are extremely important for CEE countries which are mostly building their new research orientation and therefore the inclusion of cultural heritage issues into the 6th Framework has a very strong stimulating role. On the other hand, its unclear position may cause catastrophic consequences in national research policies of some CEE countries where the European approach will be reflected.
The experience from our first eight workshops confirms that mutual exchange of knowledge between EU and CEE countries helps substantially to discover potentials for future collaboration and encourages formulation of new joint projects. The workshops initiated twelve new proposals for the 5th Framework Programme autumn calls. The professional variety of the invited participants which extended from universities, state supported research institutions to private sector representatives has proved to be very constructive as it condensed in a balanced identification of future scientific problems oriented to basic and applied research.
The ARCCHIP Centre has recently been asked to start retaining contacts, and so we are building our own database and information system and maintaining our Web site [1], with as much actual data as possible. This database aims to become a key source of information for networking arrangements between the EU and CEE countries in the field of Cultural Heritage. The state of the art reports that have resulted from the ARCCHIP programme are published there.
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Dr. Miloš Drdácký
Director of ITAM and ARCCHIP
ITAM, Czech Academy of Sciences
Prosecka 76, 190 00
Praha 9, The Czech Republic
Miloš F. Drdácký (1945) is the director of the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, where he has been working for 34 years. He has been engaged as an external reader in several Czech Universities since 1975, Head of the Town Architect Office in the World Heritage City Telc (1993-1998). His research activities include theory of structures, experimental mechanics and testing, performance of historic structures and materials, safeguarding plans and management of historic sites including risk analysis (tourism, neglecting maintenance, degradation, inappropriate conservation etc.). Results are published in more than 200 publications and research reports and he edited 15 books or International Conference Proceedings
Dr. Jan Válek
Head of Associated Research Centre for Historic Structures and
Sites
ITAM, Czech Academy of Sciences
Prosecka 76, 190 00
Praha 9, The Czech Republic
Jan Válek (1970) graduated in Building Construction and Architecture at Czech Technical University in Prague. Following his PhD research he collaborated on several projects including preparation and co-writing a review of the scientific, technical and conservation literature on ‘Mortars in Historic Buildings’ commissioned by Historic Scotland. His expertise covers conservation of stone masonry, compatibility of historic and modern materials, and assessment of degradation connected with conservation of built heritage.
