A Prática da Manutenção de Edifícios Através dos Tratados de Arquitectura e dos Manuais de Construção de Maior Divulgação na Cidade do Porto

Abstract

Nowadays, when the environmental cause is gaining, although gradually, more significance and importance in public opinion, the practice of building maintenance it is imposed as an activity to be favoured for a sustainable action. Simultaneously, the maintenance of old buildings represents the adequate way for the preservation of its cultural values, with a particular emphasis on the architectural and constructive ones. When maintenance involves old buildings, it is highly consensual to deepen knowledge about history, from architecture to crafts, seeking to obtain important information, either to confront it to current scientific and technical knowledge or to launch new research tracks. Therefore, the design of a manual for the maintenance and use of old and ordinary buildings cannot dispense the consulting of the historical and technical literature. In the context of an investigation that has been developed for the design of a maintenance manual for the bourgeois house of Porto, a campaign was carried out to analyse the architectural treatises and manuals that had circulated during the period of great urban development of the city of Porto, in order to find useful information on this topic for the present days. However, contrary to initial expectations, the documents consulted reveal very little about the practice of building maintenance. In fact, only the receipts included in the construction manuals can constitute a contribution to the current maintenance practice, taking into account the information they contain about the materials and techniques used in the past.