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Architetture nel tempo rappresenta la consapevolezza della durata, della permanenza, dell’autenticità dei luoghi attraverso i secoli e nella continua, loro, contemporaneità affidata alla conservazione che trasmette al futuro, al dialogo fra antica e nuova architettura, al progetto di restauro. Non solo quindi manufatti eccellenti ma anche architetture della quotidianità, manufatti della necessità oltre che della volontà simbolica e magniloquente, che comunque il tempo lo hanno attraversato per acquisire il diritto di essere memoria e futuro, per poter esibire una cittadinanza egualmente riconosciuta alle frontiere del tempo passato e di quello presente, materiale per la storia che attraverso la ricerca e l’indagine sul campo diventa storia anche esso.

Preventive and temporal planning of conservation is rather difficult to perform, especially concerning monumental stone buildings; the choices are often made after the degradation phenomena have already started. Many studies are looking for the reasons for this ‘resistance’. In particular the present study, the result of a doctorate research, is focused on the most operational aspects: • quantifying the residual effectiveness of water-repellent protective agents used in past restorations; • providing elements in the drafting of maintenance plans for monumental heritage; • verifying where critical conservation elements reside. The test site has been the monumental complex formed by the Cathedral of San Zeno and the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Corte in Pistoia, where the Contact Sponge Water Absorption Test (UNI 11432:2011), typically used as treated/untreated test was employed on three lithological types (white marble, serpentine and Tuscan grey sandstone) as comparison test between treatments carried out at different knows times. The test campaign was conducted by Mila Martelli with the involvement of Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape; University of Florence DiDA, DST-LAM, Department of Chemistry and, in the phase of organization of the monitoring, with the involvement of Dr. Maria Jose’ Ybañez Worboys, art restorer. The results of this research must be read in consideration of the fact that it is an ex-post survey, for which not all factors have been kept under control from the beginning, but for which it was possible to make assumptions. This study illustrates the methods and the first test results obtained which show a rather rapid decline in the effectiveness of water-repellent treatments, already a few years after their application.

The book brings together critical considerations and experiences linked to the work of the author, lecturer in restoration at the Florence University Faculty of Architecture, as supervisor of degree theses on restoration. The reflections concern teaching Restoration as a subject, the conditions within which the knowledge and culture of restoration can ripen within our universities and the most recent problems encountered by both the discipline and restoration projects. In the first part of the publication, these aspects are set out in broad and more precisely conceptual and methodological terms in chapters and themed paragraphs which also act as a guide to drawing up degree theses on restoration, as well as a contributing to the didactics and efficiency of the specific discipline. This is followed by a selection of degree theses on restoration discussed in recent years which show the route from the principles, general problems and intervention criteria for every case study to drawing up a project. They are projects that deal with analysis methods and techniques, surveys, specialist restorations, regeneration, and the relationship between old and new. In short, the projects are what gave the final stage in the university education meaning and substance, also in order to acquire fundamental keys to restoration culture and activities in the world after university.

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