Conservation Principles and Performance Based Strengthening of Heritage Buildings in Post-event Reconstruction

Recommendations for repairing and strengthening historic buildings after an earthquake and before the next in modern times go back to the contribution to the ICOMOS General Assembly of 1987 by Sir Bernard Fielden “Between two Earthquakes” (Fielden 1987). In that circumstance two important points were made: the first is that failure and damage should be used to understand performance and behaviour, so as to avoid measures that do not work. The second is that the engineer work should be integrated into the architecture historical methodology. Almost 30 years later this contribution investigate to which extent these two recommendations have been fulfilled, whether there is a common understanding between the conservation and the seismic engineering community and whether lessons from past failures are informing new strengthening strategies.