The Conservation of our Built Heritage, in Particular Statues in Aberdeen, Evaluated Through a Social and Historical Context and Their Impact, Through the Use of 3D Scanning

Cultural heritage sites all over the world are at risk due to aggressive urban expansion, development, wars and general obsolescence. Not all objects are recorded in detail although they may have social and historical significance. For example more emphasis is placed on the recording of castles and palaces than on crofters’ cottages or tenement blocks, although their history can be just as rich. This paper will investigate the historic fabric of Aberdeen through the use of digital scanning, supported by a range of media including old photographs and paintings. Dissemination of social heritage through visualisations will be explored and how this can aid the understanding of space within the city or specific area. Focus will be given to the major statues/monuments within the context of the city centre, exploring their importance in their environment. In addition studying why many have been re-located away from their original site, the reasons why, and how we have perhaps lost some of the social and historical importance of why that monument was first located there. It will be argued that Digital Media could be utilised for much more than re-creation and re-presentation of physical entities. Digital scanning, in association with visualisation tools, is used to capture the essence of both the cultural heritage and the society that created or used the sites in association with visualisation tools and in some way re-enacting the original importance placed upon the monument in its original location, through adoption of BIM Heritage.

Thermodynamic calculations for the salt crystallisation damage in porous built heritage using PHREEQC

This work considers the crystallisation mechanisms of the most common and aggressive salts that generate stress in porous building stones as a result of changing ambient conditions. These mechanisms include the salt crystallisation that result from decreasing relative humidity and changes in temperature and, in hydrated salts, the dissolution of the lower hydrated form and the subsequent precipitation of the hydrated salt. We propose a new methodology for thermodynamic calculations using PHREEQC that includes these crystallisation mechanisms. This approach permits the calculation of the equilibrium relative humidity and the parameterization of the critical relative humidity and crystallisation pressures for the dissolution–precipitation transitions. The influence of other salts on the effectives of salt crystallisation and chemical weathering is also assessed. We review the sodium and magnesium sulphate and sodium chloride systems, in both single and multicomponent solutions, and they are compared to the sodium carbonate and calcium carbonate systems. The variation of crystallisation pressure, the formation of new minerals and the chemical dissolution by the presence of other salts is also evaluated. Results for hydrated salt systems show that high crystallisation pressures are possible as lower hydrated salts dissolve and more hydrated salts precipitate. High stresses may be also produced by decreasing temperature, although it requires that porous materials are wet for long periods of time. The presence of other salts changes the temperature and relative humidity of salt transitions that generates stress rather than reducing the pressure of crystallisation, if any salt has previously precipitated. Several practical conclusions derive from proposed methodology and provide conservators and architects with information on the potential weathering activity of soluble salts. Furthermore, the model calculations might be coupled with projections of future climate to give as improved understanding of the likely changes in the frequency of phase transitions in salts within porous stone.

El arquitecto Francisco Fernández Molina (1899-1929)

En el período de máximo esplendor de la arquitectura urbana de la ciudad de Albacete, primer tercio del siglo XX, destaca y sorprende la figura del arquitecto Francisco Fernández Molina por dos razones: primera, porque sus numerosos proyectos se concentran entre los años 1924 y 1929 y, segunda, porque todos ellos presentan un especial esmero puesto tanto en la composición como en los detalles, a pesar de tratarse, en la mayoría de los casos, de encargos modestos, entendiendo por tales tanto su entidad (viviendas particulares) como su emplazamiento (periférico) en el casco urbano. El presente trabajo recopila los datos biográficos disponibles de su autor a la vez que selecciona y analiza en profundidad una muestra representativa de sus obras con el objetivo de conocer y dar a conocer a este arquitecto albaceteño al cual el municipio dedicó una de sus calles. Para la consecución de este objetivo, se ha vaciado los archivos municipal y provincial, se ha rastreado la ciudad en busca de las posibles obras en pie, se ha seleccionado los proyectos, reproducido su documentación y dado buena cuenta de sus características y cualidades. Se pretende que el estudio de la vida y obra del arquitecto Francisco Fernández Molina sirva para valorar la figura de este insigne profesional y, con ella, recuperar parte de nuestra memoria que, maltrecha por las demoliciones indiscriminadas que ha sufrido el patrimonio arquitectónico de Albacete, ha de nutrirse de esas actas de su pasado llamadas proyectos.

Sites of Chemistry in the Nineteenth Century

The three articles in this special issue of Ambix were among the twenty-one papers presented at the conference “Sites of Chemistry in the Nineteenth Century,” held in Valencia at the Institute for the History of Medicine and Science ‘López Piñero’ in July 2012. This meeting was the second of the series of conferences organised as part of the project Sites of Chemistry, 1600–2000, the aim of which was to investigate the wide and diverse range of physical spaces and places where chemistry has been practised from the early modern period to the twentieth century.