The proceedings of the Interamerican Seminar on Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage and the Technical Meeting on Rescue Archaeology are presented in Spanish, French, English and Portuguese. These meetings, held jointly in the Panamanian Museum of Man, were organized by the Working Group on Conservation of Historical and Prehistorical Heritage (Pan American Institute of Geography and History), the Cultural Heritage Technical Unit (Organization of American States) and the National Directorate (Historical Heritage of Panama). / Les comptes rendus de l’Interamerican Seminar on Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage et de la Technical Meeting on Rescue Archaeology sont présentés en espagnol, en français, en anglais et en portugais. Ces réunions, tenues conjointement dans le Musée national de l’Homme du Panama, étaient organisées par le groupe de travail sur la conservation du patrimoine historique et préhistorique (Institut panaméricain de géographie et d’histoire), l’Unité technique du patrimoine culturel (Organisation des États américains) et la Direction nationale (Patrimoine historique du Panama).

Winner of the 2016 Antoinette Forrester Downing Award presented by the Society of Architectural Historians. In many cities across the world, particularly in Europe, old buildings form a prominent part of the built environment, and we often take it for granted that their contribution is intrinsically positive. How has that widely-shared belief come about, and is its continued general acceptance inevitable? Certainly, ancient structures have long been treated with care and reverence in many societies, including classical Rome and Greece. But only in modern Europe and America, in the last two centuries, has this care been elaborated and energised into a forceful, dynamic ideology: a ‘Conservation Movement’, infused with a sense of historical destiny and loss, that paradoxically shared many of the characteristics of Enlightenment modernity. The close inter-relationship between conservation and modern civilisation was most dramatically heightened in periods of war or social upheaval, beginning with the French Revolution, and rising to a tragic climax in the 20th-century age of totalitarian extremism; more recently the troubled relationship of ‘heritage’ and global commercialism has become dominant. Miles Glendinning’s new book authoritatively presents, for the first time, the entire history of this architectural Conservation Movement, and traces its dramatic fluctuations in ideas and popularity, ending by questioning whether its recent international ascendancy can last indefinitely.

Includes a free CD containing the full contents of the book. The rammed earth technique, in all its variants, is widespread all over the world. This enormously prevalent building technique harbours an important richness of varieties both in application and in materials used. Interventions on historical rammed earth buildings have also been carried out in all the geographical areas where these structures are found. This historical heritage has undergone diverse forms of reconstruction, conservation, repair, substitution and/or structural consolidation. The different criteria applied require different techniques, materials or forms of intervention. The results of the interventions have also been manifold, both in terms of the impact on the building and the technical and material durability. With a view to these issues, this book deals with rammed earth architecture and its restoration, and, in a more general sense, with the construction techniques and restoration of all earthen structures. Rammed Earth Conservation will be a valuable source of information for academics and professionals in the fields of Civil Engineering, Construction and Building Engineering and Architecture.

Classical theories of conservation are well known in the heritage community, but in the last two decades thinking has shifted, and classical theory has faced increasing criticism. Contemporary Theory of Conservation brings together current ideas in conservation theory, presenting a structured, coherent analysis of the subject for the first time. This engaging and readable text is split into 3 parts. The first, Fundamentals of conservation, addresses the identity of conservation itself, and problems arising when classical conservation theories are applied. The second part, Questioning classical theories, delves deeper into the criticism of classical ideas such as reversibility. This leads on to the creation of new paradigms such as sustainability, which are covered in the final part of the book, Conservation ethics.

Vernacular architecture in general and earthen architecture in particular, with their rich variety of forms worldwide, are custodians of the material culture and identity of the peoples who built them. In addition, they are widely recognized as ancestral examples of sustainability in all their variants and interpretations, and the architecture of the present ought to learn from these when designing the sustainable architecture of the future. The conservation of these architectures – seemingly simple yet full of wisdom – is to be undertaken now given their intrinsic value and their status as genuine examples of sustainability to be learnt from and interpreted in contemporary architecture. Vernacular and earthen architecture: Conservation and Sustainability will be a valuable source of information for academics and professionals in the fields of Environmental Science, Civil Engineering, Construction and Building Engineering and Architecture.