Massimo Leserri

Every cultural landscape requires documentation that satisfies the need to recognize and identify it, seeking to understand the multiple aspects that have shaped its conformation and persistence over time. The Sanctuary of Las Lajas in Colombia brings together various aspects related to potential exceptional universal values, which require a methodological approach that includes strategies to document both the tangible architectural and landscape heritage, as well as its intangible aspects.

The riverside architecture has a formal configuration featuring corresponding with urban dynamics in port cities. This paper presents an approach to market design buildings
focusing on the part of the history of maritime and fluvial trade in the Colombian Caribbean, through analysis of some market buildings located at the river´s edge. As a result,
sections it shows parts of the graphical drawing restitution made in heritage buildings to
which ones carry out a taxonomic analysis
of architectural elements in the study cases.
This work expects to contribute knowledge to
the architectural valuation of these heritage
buildings, to enhance their preservation and
decision-making for further building project
interventions.

The digitisation of cultural heritage makes it possible to integrate bibliographic, iconographic and archival knowledge with the metric data obtained from the metric survey and provides a new support for the protection and management of assets where the need to reconcile the general interest of the community with the use and enjoyment of the private owner is encountered. In Piazza Maria Immacolata, an emblematic public space in Martina Franca, public and private cultural interests meet/clash. The need arises to identify new, flexible and contemporary legal forms to overcome this opposition between defence of the general vs. the private interest.

This article arises from the research project "Cohabitar" which examines housing constructed by the Instituto de Crédito Territorial (ICT) in the Colombian Caribbean region. The study aims to graphically represent the stages of physical-spatial transformation and analyze the housing growth process based on the progressive housing model proposed for the La Granja and P5 neighborhoods in Montería. Content analysis is used to examine, identify, and extract information from available documentary archives, and scientific surveying is employed to visually restore the model implemented by the ICT. This reveals the existence of a pre-designed open progressive housing system that offers flexibility in space distribution and land occupancy, with the core-base highlighted as a key element to adapt to environmental dynamics and housing usage needs. Nevertheless, the need for citizen participation in progressive housing design is emphasized as an innovative element in the social design approach and provides valuable experiences for future sustainable housing models.

This study is focused on vernacular features from eclectic architecture from the Colombian tropics, particularly on the San Jeronimo de Monteria Cathedral, one of the most important architectural symbols from this Colombian city. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, architecture in Europe and America was characterized by a resumption of historical styles, generally called 'revivals', and the blend of these, 'eclecticism'. Montería was no stranger to this situation, also assisted by national and international migrations into the territory and the adaptation of local vernacular techniques. This cathedral is explored as an example where elements from vernacular tradition are recognized, which guaranteed the operation of foreign models, especially in the bioclimatic functioning of this tropical region.

There are unique and varied examples of dry stone constructions in the Mediterranean region, whose interest, in Puglia (Italy) and attested in recent decades, has determined a speculative attitude that has made possible for these vernacular architectures to gain considerable economic value. Consequently, in addition to the actions supported by municipal regulations and both local and regional planning instruments, it is necessary to identify their cultural value and their peculiarities, all of them required for implementing conscious policies for a correct protection and preservation. We particularly aim to focus on the survey of these architectures within this contribution, a neglected subject of certain complexity, in order to propose a series of reflections that support the activity of those who intend to intervene on these artifacts. In fact, their plastic component and morphological uniqueness allow them to blend with sculptures that require the usage of modern and refined methodologies and technologies for their documentation. Thus, the lack of recognition on features and peculiarities has resulted in actions regarding their restoration with a general formal homologation and the loss of the original morphological singularity during interventions for their conservation.

Jorge Llopis Verdu’s book begins with a Hadot and Heiddeger’s quote, defying the reader to recognize the usefulness in the useless, so that he could keep pursuing this useful exercise boldly. This reflection on drawing starts from an investigation into its own usefulness and its historical role as a privileged scientific language. It has indeed been used as a powerful tool to record the travel experiences – since the first explorations - ending up generating the computer graphics and some of the new visual arts. This is the reason why the present book is particularly appropriate for the times: it proposes an updated report of the issues related to the architectural representation and how to teach it, based on the analysis of previous studies that define the bibliographic pantheon of our academic field.

La primera versión de la iglesia de Saint-Pierre de Firminy-Vert, realizada por Le Corbusier y caracterizada por una variedad de elementos arquitectónicos y compositivos que introducen sensaciones apasionantes, proporcionales y perceptibles en el conjunto del proyecto, constituye además un interesante ejercicio de restitución completa y precisa de los dibujos del proyecto. Este artículo presenta resultados investigativos desde una perspectiva analítica, interpretativa y crítica que no pretende abordar una definición de la arquitectura de Le Corbusier, sino la ordenación de documentos y dibujos que reavivan la actividad de aquella propuesta. La metodología usada se sustenta estrictamente en el material documental derivado del proceso y el ejercicio proyectual de la iglesia, lo cual posibilita el entendimiento y la reconstrucción de esa primera versión a partir de las fuentes primarias.

En la actualidad, las nuevas tecnologías del levantamiento digital son cada vez más utilizadas como
herramientas que responden exigencias sociales de recuperación de la memoria cultural, definida
como la identidad de una sociedad en un determinado territorio.
Buscando dar respuesta a esta necesidad en un contexto latinoamericano, ha sido implementada una
metodología de documentación y reconstrucción digital de un bien residencial de interés patrimonial
en Colombia, la Casa de la familia Ferrari en Montería; una residencia significativa por su impronta
europea en un contexto nativo tradicional. En esta investigación se desarrolla un procedimiento para
el conocimiento avanzado del objeto de estudio y se experimentan técnicas de documentación, cada
vez más eficaces. Con la intención de desvelar cada particular de la componente física dimensional
del objeto arquitectónico, mediante datos gráficos e infográficos, se generan resultados a partir de
los cuales es posible interpretar y representar la historia e imagen de su estado original. Los gráficos
obtenidos, extraídos de modelos 3D, son elaborados y analizados en ambiente vectorial, según un
procedimiento científico; donde el código grafico se convierte en un instrumento de representación
y constituye la base para futuras intervenciones.

Nowadays, the use of new technologies for digital survey is constantly increasing due to the social
demands for the recovery of the cultural memory, in terms of the identity of a society in a particular territory. In order to respond to this need in a Latin American context, it was implemented
a methodology to document and digitally reconstruct a residential property of patrimonial interest
in Colombia, the House of the Ferrari’s family in Montería, an important residence with European
imprint in a traditional native context. In this research, it was developed a procedure to acquire an
extensive knowledge of the object of study, while also experimenting innovative documentation
techniques, which have proved to be increasingly effective. The idea of disclosing every detail of the
physical aspects of the architectural object, was pursued through graphic and infographic data; the
processing of these data finally resulted in an interpretation of the history, while also allowing to
recreate an image of the original state of the building. The graphics obtained, directly extracted from
the 3D models, were elaborated and analyzed in a vector environment, according to a scientific procedure; in this way the graphic code itself becomes a representation instrument and the very basis
for future interventions.

El presente estudio está centrado en uno de los simbolos arquitectónicos más importantes de la Ciudad de Cartagena de Indias y es resultado de un proyecto de investigación internacional perfeccionado en la Universidad Colombiana de la Pontificia Bolivariana sobre el Patrimonio Arquitectónico del Caribe colombiano. El casco histórico de Cartagena de Indias, declarada patrimonio de la Humanidad por lo UNESCO 2 (1984), es la suma de varios elementos distintivos que le dan la identidad a la Ciudad amurallada, como La Torre del Reloj y la Puerta principal de la muralla, sobre la que está asentada. El objetivo de esta investigación es indagar el artefacto a través de un estudio integrado donde se cruzan el levantamiento arquitectónico de la
realidad existente y un estudio sobre todos sus elementos desaparecidos, o sea el análisis del conjunto de trazas superpuestas a lo largo de su historia para reinterpretarlas y quizás completar el conocimiento sobre esta arquitectura.

Monteria is one of the main cities in northern Colombia with serious problems of marginalized population in informal settlements. Mocari neighborhood, on the north of the city, is one of the oldest prehispanic towns from the region which in the 1970s started an illegal urbanization process in the area that has developed all the typical elements of an informal city in addition to the aesthetic expression of informality and self-construction through recycled materials.

Elements featuring constructions do not have issues able to be referenced as projects of traditional architecture or processes of generative design. Then, it is necessary to use a drawing thought of as an architectural representative synthesis in which we want to distinguish, on the one hand the fragmented materiality (including origin) and on the other, architectural composition. There are some important references about the Colombian informal city phenomenon but there are no systematic studies or specific cases through architectural representation and urban survey. The bibliography most used to understand how to approach the removal of a sector of the Mocari neighborhood gathered texts on urban and architectural survey from the Italian school such as those from Dino Coppo and Mario Docci, whereas the most used reflections on the informal city were from Roberto De Rubertis.

The study was developed through identification of an urban sector of Mocari with field work and survey. Then, graphic restitution was made in order to make a housing classification among the hybrid, vernacular and industrial typologies, and an experimental attempt to represent materiality, recognizing and sorting fragments coming from recycling according to the diverse materials and colors.

The objective of this research was to study the informal city of Mocari through the experience of an unconventional graphic code capable of representing the typical features of the informal city to comprehend and analyze from that graphic order the possibility of suggesting or predisposing intervention elements such as architectural and urban regeneration, considering self-construction as a future opportunity.

Casa Pineda (1882) is perhaps the oldest still standing house from the historic center of Monteria, a city founded belatedly by soldiers under the orders of the Spanish crown in 1777, a few years before Colombia reached independent from Spain. This manor house is located on the right bank of the Sinu river across from its Ronda and it was known as "la construcción" since it was one of the first houses built with brick, in contrast to the vernacular wood and palm houses from that time. This research is based on some bibliographical sources regarding architectural survey such as Docci and the local historical documentation (History of Monteria from J. Exbrayat B.) that tells about the urban development of this Colombian city from the country’s north-west, in the Caribbean region. There is neither punctual bibliographical information on the object of study, nor a graphic documentation about the design. Significant, however, has been the iconographic documentation found, thanks to the analysis of private photographic archives from the families that inhabited the House.
Straight measurements from the facades were made, as a reference, to scale the model thrown by photogrammetric techniques. The house architectural floors were extracted through an integrated survey, and then digitized in a vector manner. The iconographic information served to identify transformation in the facades. Many elements were relocated to adapt to the needs of new functions the house had over the years.
The objective of this study was to reveal the architectural and heritage relevance from Casa Pineda for the city of Monteria as a cultural memory; and to reveal the alterations and reorganizations of the patrimonial property that should be considered for any intervention or restoration. Also, to encourage patrimonial sustainability in addition to establish a research and innovative experience supported by architectural survey, which at this time is not yet part of the consolidated instruments in the profession aiming at performing intervention and conservation of heritage assets or patrimonial properties.

The first version of Saint-Pierre de Firminy-Vert Church by Le Corbusier
is characterized by the variety of compositional and architectural elements
that introduce exciting, proportional and perceptible sensations into the
whole project. It also constitutes an interesting exercise of complete and
accurate restoration of the project’s drawings. This paper discusses research
results from an analytical, interpretative and critical perspective which
does not intend to address a definition of Le Corbusier’s architecture, but
ordering documents and drawings that revive such a proposal. The research
methodology is meticulously based in documentary material derived
from the church’s project process, which enables the understanding and
reconstruction of the aforementioned first version from primary sources.

Monteria, Colombian city, presents an interesting patrimonial image in proximity of the river Sinú. The architectural survey represents the strategy to develop the knowledge of urban reality and to plan a scientific analysis on the existing reality. The study, developed with various scales of representation, leads to a final graphic information system, preparatory to a planning intervention.

This research project begins with a two-hour journey in the Cordoba department, (Colombian Caribbean Region), two hours of endless pathway and abrupt braking dividing the city of Monteria from Covenas town; namely the inland from the sea, the green from the blue.
A trip that has allowed landscape observation presenting itself as an endless extension where nature mixes with man and cattle presence. The project begins with landscape observation where inherency of fences of live branches nailed in the ground is a constant. In such a landscape, what is built seems to be obtained using wood, by means of self-construction and characterized by an emergency visualization of consensual stability. Long series of lined up vertical boards, for example, describe horizontal lines which probably pursued the need to define them as private fields and properties. Approaching the towns seems to intensify poles’ deformation, but it can be just a sensation, and it hypothesizes a new idea of curtain wall appearing urbanized when definitions begin to look alike. The city is approaching, or it is a campaign that slowly hits in the lure of modernity. Irregular enclosures begin to harden, to acquire new rules and orders. Heights appear regularized. Even parcels will appear permanently blocked in a wall.
The research has been developed through the study of bahareque, an ancient technique of Caribbean construction to build walls of wooden sticks and a final layer of humid ground. Nonetheless, the study’s objective is to analyse the historical genesis of vernacular architectures where sticks become wall. The wall is born, but hypothetically the branches’ braided system has not completely disappeared (Figure 1).The wall continues to delimit borders and architecture as a branches’ set stuck in the ground. It has neither lost its nature nor origin. They are signs of the landscape and, at the same time, the most evident expression and symbol of knowing how to do and live through a territory’s materials. The study ends with an analysis of the genesis and use of living branches in fields such as architecture where their extraordinary construction techniques represent an indelible knowledge.

In the Cordoba department, municipality of Cerete, at the heart of the Colombian Caribbean region, the experience of some architectural solutions developed in the fifties and sixties of the twentieth century is significant. Cereté, a municipality a few kilometers away from the capital, Monteria, seems to reveal an important modernist legacy of Colombian and foreign architects.
Architetcs such as Miguel Rafael Farah Zakzuk, Roberto Acosta Madiedo, Enrique Zeisel, Adolfo Tyluis among others, are the main representatives of this modernist architecture. It was possible thanks to their hability to conquer the emerging social elite from the economic and agricultural boom in the mid-twentieth century.
The research discloses an architecture capable of being founded through consolidated patterns in the Caribbean culture and the new vision acquired in the Colombian architecture schools, through tools of representation and bibliography and iconography analysis. In fact, It is evident the huge capacity to adapt the cultural tradition without loosing contact with the tropical weather and naturel.

This study is about the Santa Cruz de Lorica’s Cathedral, in the Colombian Caribbean. A region undergone a series of social, political, hierarchical and architectural changes since mid-nineteenth century which decentralized trade main sources and direct connection, such as with Cartagena from the time when both municipalities were part of one single department. The city’s political and strategic importance was vital for the department’s development and military strongholds, also reflected in the town’s constructions and cartographies. Its commercial and industrial splendor from the first half of the 20th century allowed the creation of its “Port City” conditions, nuanced by a diverse cultures atmosphere in a strategic and privileged place with main axes and genesis such as the Sinu River, the Ciénaga Grande swamp and the Caribbean Sea. It’s good to remember that the historic center was once the whole city, developing itself from a rustic church, the cathedral today; and the city´s growth was limited by a central axis, the Sinu river. Lorica’s cathedral responds to a historical milestone and cultural identity for its inhabitants and history itself. Around this monument, in central square, main cultural and political activities of the municipality have been developing over time. Nowadays it is in front of government palace, the Santa Cruz de Lorica’s Town Hall. This study is based on the architectural survey associated with a history search that despite of its much oral tradition, doesn’t have enough written information. This survey is as an open system at various knowledge levels that has several activities of iconographic analysis, bibliography, direct information, etc. Though the Cathedral is the main axis of the historic center and the city itself, it lacks study and historical data, has neither writings nor cartography, its author is unknown and has a large absence of data that allow to clarify its history and chronology.  As an object, a critical, morphological and geometric analysis is made to understand the author's thought to propose comparisons with other cathedrals, styles confrontations and characteristics, to make conceptual hypotheses of the Cathedral.

In the Colombian Caribbean region, human extraordinary ability to interpret nature's functioning and mechanical language, has allowed man to manage and use, throughout history, natural elements to improve living conditions. In Architecture, technical-constructive knowledge development has enabled constructions of a temporary and stable nature. In fact, this research project begins with the relationship between the understanding of nature and the creation of Colombian vernacular architecture, which has led to a special and unique form of architecture such as the Corraleja. In this architecture, vernacular constructive tradition and ephemeral character are concurremt. This has been an object of interest due to its folkloric aspects, however, it has rarely been researched for its architecture. Currently, it is usually built only when its real spatial function is needed, becoming a place destined to contain the annual bullfighting-like festivities. In fact, its limited and cyclical permanence, gives it an ephemeral and also nomadic character since it is not always built, necessarily, in the same place. This research study begins by means of the importance of the vertical balance control of the alive branches nailed in the ground, still present in the whole Caribbean region through enclosures. This can be considered as a primordial action and conquest, and has allowed the realization of every vernacular construction. In Europe, the tradition of ephemeral architecture when there are some civil and religious festivities becomes stable architecture over time; bullfighting party in Spain is an emblematic case which is transformed into stable spaces such as bullrings. This tradition extends to the Spanish colony in America in the eighteenth century. In the Colombian Caribbean, for example, the bullfighting festival keeps an ephemeral character that is fed by a vernacular architectural tradition. In addition, existing literature on the vernacular theme suggests that, from long time ago, many examples of tectonic building (a set of finite or pseudo-finite elements such as branches, trunks, etc.) have been nomadic, self-constructed, anonymous and with an emergency appearance which have become stable, just after many constructions, by losing all ephemeral characteristics. Likewise, to understand the Corralejas' genesis, observing the history of European architecture has been necessary due to the several old associated experiences of transitory constructions, e.g., with recreational spaces, religious or civil celebrations. This study is based on different research methodologies such as drawings of existing cases and bibliographic and iconographic analyzes. This has also been developed through a compulsory contrast with the ancient architecture of bullfighting shows, to formulate morphological reflections and analogies and analyze their ephemeral condition. Today, the Corraleja survives in Colombia, representing an architectural oddity that must be safeguarded not only for its vernacular essence but also for its limited temporal condition. In fact, tectonics, the art of montage, reconfirms the connection allowing its existence and representing a surprising and unique set of values that must be defended and treated as an architectural heritage. After the analysis on the Corralejas genesis, the study will continue through several forms of survey to explore and define constructive aspects in a different scale of detail.

The study of “Casa Grandeth” inaugurates a new investigation line, oriented to discover the reality of the architecture in Cordoba as a colombian region. The survey used for the knowledge and the limits of the heritage of Monteria city, with special reference to the digital technology, both for data acquisition and the graphical restitution

La lectura crítica integrada de documentos escritos, iconográficos y datos tomados de los levantamientos arquitectónico sobre la realidad urbana de Montería (Colombia) sugiere una metodología de investigación esencial para cualquier hipótesis de catalogación y representación de su patrimonio urbano, permitiendo principalmente la posibilidad de acumular los primeros resultados preparatorias para la adopción de formas de protección y mejora de dicho patrimonio. Este trabajo representa el verdadero inicio científico de esta línea de investigación llevada a cabo gracias a las primeras experiencias de análisis ocurridas en el ámbito del análisis producido en el Taller de Patrimonio y el curso de Representación de la Facultad de Arquitectura de la Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana sede Montería.

ESPOSIZIONE DELLE METODOLOGIE SCIENTIFICHE DELLA CULTURA  ITALIANA PER LA CONOSCENZA, TUTELA E VALORIZZAZIONE DEL PATRIMONIO ARCHITETTONICO
+ EXPOSICIÓN CIENTÍFICA
+ EXPRESION GRÁFICA
+ EXPERIENCIA ITALIANA
PARA EL CONOCIMIENTO, TUTELA Y VALORIZACIÓN DEL PATRIMONIO ARQUITECTONICO