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Getty Conservation Institute

Field Trip ReportBy F. LeBlanc, Head, Field Projects

Rome (ARIS-07)March 13-16, 2007

ICCROM / GCI – ARIS-07 COURSE

Good conservation decisions are made with acknowledgement of the history, the significance, past interventions, and current condition of cultural resources. Re-cords, inventories, and information management tools are continuously being de-veloped and must be considered a fundamental part of the conservation process.

In 2003, ICCROM held a very successful 4-weeks advanced course entitled Archi-tectural Records, Documentation, Inventories and Information systems for Conser-vation (ARIS-03) to which GCI’s Rand Eppich participated and offered support to the organizers.

During the following year, ICCROM approached the GCI asking if it would co-orga-nize another ARIS course during 2005. We agreed. The course was held and again was very successful according to the participant’s evaluation. Both organizations agreed to repeat the course in 2007. It will be held at ICCROM from September 12 to October 12. Kecia Fong, Rand Eppich and I met with ICCROM colleagues and the course’s core instructors last week. The meeting was to discuss the structure and content of the next course and to ensure a smooth and well-managed transi-tion from one course session to the next.

The first day’s meetings were held in the offices of ICCROM. Joe King (Site Unit Director), Anna Stewart (ICCROM, Coordinator, Training Information and Fellow-ships), Ana Almagro (Course Coordinator), Antonio Almagro (Instructor), Rand Ep-pich (GCI) and I reviewed the 91 applications received. Our task was to reduce this number down to 18, the maximum number of participants for the ARIS-07 course. A preliminary list of participants from the following countries was drawn and is still subject to review and final approval: Australia, Azerbaijan, Barbados, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Japan, Lituania,

Splendid view of Rome from the terrace of the Spanish Academy in Rome where the core instructors met to prepare the ARIS-07 course.

The Spanish Academy in Rome located across the street from the American Academy in Rome, kindly hosted the meetings for the preparation of the ARIS-07 course

Joseph King, Site Unit Director from ICCROM

Cloister at the Spanish Academy in Rome

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Vasco Martins Costa, expert in inventories from DGEMN, Portugal

Ana Almagro Vidal, Course Coordinator, conservation architect from Fundación Caja Madrid, Spain

Nigeria, Pakistan. Panama, Serbia, Tanzania, USA, Ukraine. The final list should be communicated to all sometime during April.

The next two days of meetings were held at the Spanish Academy in Rome that kindly accepted to host our meetings. The Academy is located next to the Ameri-can Academy in Rome and has a breath-taking view of the city (see image on first page). Both Ana and Antonio Almagro were residents at the Spanish Academy while studying in Rome in earlier years.

Participants to the meeting were:Joe King, Site Unit Director, ICCROMMargarida Alçada and Vasco Martins Costa, experts in inventories from DGEMN, PortugalAntonio Almagro Gorbea, architect and expert in photogrammetry from EEA-CSIC, Granada, SpainAna Almagro Vidal, Course coordinator, conservation architect from Fundación Caja Madrid, SpainLucia Gómez Robles, Course assistant, architect from Granada, Spain, Mauro Volpiano, architectural historian, expert in documentation from Politec-nico di Torino, ItalyFulvio Rinaudo, engineer, expert in photogrammetry and documentation from Politecnico di Torino, ItalyRand Eppich, Kecia Fong and Francois LeBlanc from the GCI.

Following a warm welcome by Joe King, the participants reviewed the ARIS-05 course evaluation prepared by the course participants, Rand and Ana and dis-cussed what they considered to be the positive contributions of the ARIS-05 course that should be repeated or enhanced during the ARIS-07 course as well as the areas that needed improvements. One such area is information management.

It was agreed that Fulvio Rinaudo would introduce the participants to the general concepts of information management on the very first day of the course while Mauro Volpiano will give them instructions on how to name, file and store the information and documents that they will collect or produce during the course in order to prepare three products during the last week: an architectural restoration

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Anna Stewart from IC-CROM helping with candi-date selection

Selecting 18 participants from a list of 91 candidates from all over the world is certainly not an easy task. This was done collaboratively by representatives from ICCROM, the GCI and the Core instruc-tors.

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product, an inventory product and a product for dissemination. Both instructors will meet with participants on the Friday of every week to ensure that this aspect of the course is well understood and managed.

To ensure that everyone uses the same terms, a glossary of terms related to recording, documentation and information management will be prepared by Ana Almagro and discussed with core instructors. It will be distributed to participants and will be used during the course.

The Church of Santa Cecilia located next to the offices of ICCROM will be the site for the case study. Participants will apply the techniques and principles taught dur-ing the course to the interior left wall of the nave, which has obvious conservation problems and is covered partly by a wall painting.

Then, all together, the instructors reconfirmed the goal and objectives of the next ARIS course that are to improve architectural conservation practice through the use of methods and tools of recording, documentation, inventories and informa-tion management. Improving information collection and management will improve conservation decisions.

The formal course will last four weeks but participants will be required to arrive ear-lier to ensure that all logistic details and official requirements are completed before the formal teaching begins. Rand and Ana will be in charge of that week. Antonio Almagro will be in charge of the following two weeks where participants will learn about metric recording principles and techniques. Margarida Alçada and Vasco Costa will be in charge of the third week that focuses on inventories while Rand and Ana will be in charge of the final week when participants will be introduced to emerging technologies and will prepare the final products that will synthesize all that they have learned during the course.

An intranet web site will be created for the purpose of this project. Specific sections will be reserved for the instructors, the participants and the public. The selected participants will be required to do pre-course preparatory work to be shared among themselves and with the instructors via the web site.

Finally, the Core Instructors pulled together the course’s detailed program, day-by-day and week-by-week. The course contents and activities as well as how they

Core instructors discuss-ing the case study at the church of Santa Cecilia

Left wall of Santa Cecilia nave; course instructors will use this case to apply condition recording tools taught during the course; a professional wall paintings conservator will tell partici-pants what information is needed from a conserva-tor’s point of view.

Interior of Santa Cecilia where practical applica-tion of principles and tools taught during the course will take place.

The church of Santa Ceci-lia located near ICCROM’s offices

ARIS-07 Core instructors discussing the details of a session at the Spanish Academy in Rome.

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manage the information they have gathered during the week will be reviewed and evaluated every Friday by the participants working in round table sessions.

Week “0” comprises the time that needs to be set aside before the formal training begins in week one. Students will be introduced to each other, share their expecta-tions and the major issues in their countries, learn about logistic, have the opportu-nity to refresh their knowledge of CAD software, and get to know each other during a field trip to the Vatican archives.

During the first week, the participants will be introduced to the general principles of

Fulvio Rinaudo and Mauro Volpiano from Politecnico di Torino will supervise the course’s information management

Kecia Fong from GCI’s Education Group advized on various organizational and evaluation aspects of the course

Margarida Alçada expert in inventories from DGEMN, Portugal

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information mangement and given instructions on how to manage the material that they will produce during the course. They will also be introduced to the conserva-tion process, where recording and documentation fits into this process, the various tools available in this field, and the principles of photography. Using the practical case of Santa Cecilia, they will apply some of these tools. The principles and use of topographical and stereophotogrammetry tools will also be discussed.

During the second week, the participants will continue to apply the tools, discuss lessons learned and present some of their own work. They will be introduced to the needs and gaps in the field of recording and documentation.

The third week will introduce participants to inventories, documentation manage-ment principles and tools. They will hear about the range of applications from

Interior courtyard at the Spanish Academy in Rome

Lucia Gómez Robles, Course assistant, architect from Granada, Spain

Information manage-ment will be much more integrated in ARIS-07 than it was in previous courses; a glossary of recording and documentation terms will be prepared and precise instructions given to participants on how to identify and store all infor-mation gathered during the course.

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object to city to territory. The week will conclude by a round table discussion.

The last week will be devoted to simple and more complex tools, preparing and printing reports of various kinds, current and up-coming developments. The course will conclude with a round table and a course evaluation exercise.

This ancient granary is exhibited in the interior courtyard of the Spanish Academy. The artifact was intercepted by Italian customs in the port of Livorno. It was illegally smuggled out of Spain and bound for a foreign country. The Spanish government not knowing exactly where it came from and who the rightful owner was, asked that it be sent to the Spanish Academy. The granary is purposefully raised from the ground and rests on large stones that prevent rats and other rodents from reaching the food stored in the granary.

Meals prepared and served at the Spanish Academy were just great

Francois LeBlanc, GCI Head of Field Projects