Science and Cultural Heritage

The 1964 Venice Charter is a document of great international importance and has guided different types of interventions with its definitions and criteria on cultural heritage. In Article 2 it is mentioned that “The conservation and restoration of monuments constitute a discipline that makes use of all the sciences and techniques that can contribute to the study and safeguarding of the monumental heritage [1].” This document states that at present, in addition to the participation of the sciences, it is also necessary for various disciplines to participate. The application of knowledge; methodologies and methods constitute an interdisciplinary intervention, especially seeing that the contribution of each one of them, their competencies and requirements, also clearly establishes the limits and borders so that the interpretation is adequate in each area within its complexity.
In this framework, we start from the objective interpretations, appreciating the authentic substance, as the Charter itself establishes, and also from those that are far from this, such as subjective appreciations, that is, what you like or personal interpretation. Therefore, the training must be broad, as well as the participation of various teams and readings of the cultural heritage. There must be contemporary tools and technologies that allow obtaining previously unappreciated data and that allow the establishment of conditions that prevent unsupported technical actions or subsequent consequences that derive from ignorance of aspects not appreciable at first glance.
Furthermore, the cultural heritage-legacy is not an isolated event, it is immersed in the set of particularities of a site, or in relation to buildings that define a set from the conditions of an urban or rural environment. In the urban environment, it is found within a city system, with specific functions, with particular meanings, etc., which cannot be isolated by a monumental list gaze.
The same happens with the idea of the natural environment, which is a space adjacent or circumscribed to a context where there may be endemic or induced conditions that are related to the ecological sphere, or literally environmental, and that are related to the idea of a historical garden or, simply, with an ecological and environmental value as part of an urban ecosystem that allows the quality of life to the inhabitants. The relationship between science and heritage is, therefore, an inseparable relationship that allows us to understand the values, the problems and diagnose the particularities and their effects on the materials, whether due to the weather, the effects of rain, devastation or the effects of Orientation conditions with respect to location and context conditions.
This relationship between the disciplines and the application of knowledge, in addition to the theoretical body that bases the conservation of the built heritage, is related to the natural and is based on an interpretation of authenticity as the main value, but also on a series of definitions on which this interpretation is based and on the conditions in which the intervention criteria are specified. These include: leaving the mark of time, that is, the difference between the new and the old to avoid false histories; the reversibility and, above all, the protection of the different levels of the authentic, subject to interpretations of the material, spatial, of the time, etc., as established in documents such as those of Nara, Santo Domingo and San Antonio of ICOMOS, events derived from and inspired by the Charter of Venice, where the conditions of interventions away from deception are exposed so that they are protective of the intrinsic qualities of the assets-legacy or heritage [2].
Science, heritage and the various disciplines are unavoidable at different theoretical and practical levels, even in the epistemological foundations that explain the empirical in a scientific way. It is a broad and inclusive relationship, but with interpretative limits for disciplines and knowledge. In this contextual framework, the conservation of heritage is situated not only among specific studies on monuments, but also within that of ensembles to address a series of aspects related to the city, territories and contemporary discourses of sustainability. They are essential to solve current needs without compromising future generations. And more than this, heritage conservation is established as an instrument to take care of the conditions of sites (such as historic centers) and prevent them from being isolated for tourism or as a tourist destination, but rather to incorporate them into the protection and care quality of life and environmental quality, integrating them into the complex of the city and avoiding radical rupture.

1. (1964) Venice Charter. International Council on Monuments and Sites, Paris, France.
2. Nara Charter (Japan) ICOMOS, St. Domingo, St. Antonio, USA.