Dose anybody know the Italian word for ’Lime’. I travel to that country quite frequently and I am astounded by their love affair with cement and concrete even to repair their beautiful 15th /16th century buildings. I would really like to preach the word of Lime out there but I don’t know the translation.
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Nemesis
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A blast from the past:
http://periodproperty.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9042&hilit=earthquake
http://periodproperty.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9042&hilit=earthquake
It’s mainly the render repairs to their old buildings that concerns me. More often than not you will see an old rendered and lime washed wall on the side of a house with an aged ‘burnt umber’ patina that has taken a hundred years or more to achieve that anybody else in the world would be proud of, and right in the middle of the wall will be a repair patch of grey cement.
Even old castles and stone hill top towns get the dreaded cement render patchwork treatment. Large grey patches standing out against the more buff coloured original.
Other buildings will have bare patches of exposed brick or stone where the ancient render has fallen away and these are just left to continue decaying despite the building being occupied and fitted out internally to a very high specification as either homes or smart shops. Better I suppose than applying the dreaded cement.
The walls on many of these old buildings are two or three feet thick so I don’t suppose they have a problem with water ingress but this cement render repair has to stop if for no other reason than aesthetics and originality.
Please help. How do I translate lime into Italian?
Even old castles and stone hill top towns get the dreaded cement render patchwork treatment. Large grey patches standing out against the more buff coloured original.
Other buildings will have bare patches of exposed brick or stone where the ancient render has fallen away and these are just left to continue decaying despite the building being occupied and fitted out internally to a very high specification as either homes or smart shops. Better I suppose than applying the dreaded cement.
The walls on many of these old buildings are two or three feet thick so I don’t suppose they have a problem with water ingress but this cement render repair has to stop if for no other reason than aesthetics and originality.
Please help. How do I translate lime into Italian?
Penners
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Calce?
Is that right, Middi?
Is that right, Middi?
Penners
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Sorry - I was typing as Middi posted.
Lime = Calce
All the Italian builders I came across know how to use it and used it as a norm on historic buildings.
There are many resources on the subject, try this: http://www.forumcalce.it/nel_restauro.htm
"It is quite sad to sit in one of these local restaurants and hear (naive) people appraise the "locale" ( the local !!) (Quote)
Don't get sad, "Locale" does mean "local" but it also means "premises" and is a common generic term used to refer to bars, a clubs restaurants etc. In that context it has nothing to do with "local"
"The culture of conservation ( from my experirnce anyway) is not as widespread as England"
From my 25 years of living in Italy and 18 in England, I would say the opposite. White City, the Adelphi, Battersy Power Station... Any British town centre looks a complete mess with plastic windows and awful signage and gaps where beautiful buildings have been demolished. And the demolishing goes on. I can't think of a single historic building that has been demolished in Florence in the last 25 years, while in hackney or Margate, many disappear every year. Italians take great pride in their heritage while in England, that pride is a limited to the upper and middle classes.
Consolidation of period buildings is treated as a very serous matter. The routine and legally requirement to insert cncrete structure to consolidate restored buildings is better than loosing the building
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25912445@N03/2435519649/sizes/l/ -that was just a Period structural fault that would have been saved by some contemporary engineering, Instead, now we have a replica.
As Middi points out, earthquakes are a serious matter in Italy.
Heres a list of recorded serious quakes: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lista_di_terremoti_in_Italia
I remember the Irpinia earthquake in 1980 which in 60 seconds Killed 2735 people injured 8848 and more or less destroyed 70 towns.
All the Italian builders I came across know how to use it and used it as a norm on historic buildings.
There are many resources on the subject, try this: http://www.forumcalce.it/nel_restauro.htm
"It is quite sad to sit in one of these local restaurants and hear (naive) people appraise the "locale" ( the local !!) (Quote)
Don't get sad, "Locale" does mean "local" but it also means "premises" and is a common generic term used to refer to bars, a clubs restaurants etc. In that context it has nothing to do with "local"
"The culture of conservation ( from my experirnce anyway) is not as widespread as England"
From my 25 years of living in Italy and 18 in England, I would say the opposite. White City, the Adelphi, Battersy Power Station... Any British town centre looks a complete mess with plastic windows and awful signage and gaps where beautiful buildings have been demolished. And the demolishing goes on. I can't think of a single historic building that has been demolished in Florence in the last 25 years, while in hackney or Margate, many disappear every year. Italians take great pride in their heritage while in England, that pride is a limited to the upper and middle classes.
Consolidation of period buildings is treated as a very serous matter. The routine and legally requirement to insert cncrete structure to consolidate restored buildings is better than loosing the building
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25912445@N03/2435519649/sizes/l/ -that was just a Period structural fault that would have been saved by some contemporary engineering, Instead, now we have a replica.
As Middi points out, earthquakes are a serious matter in Italy.
Heres a list of recorded serious quakes: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lista_di_terremoti_in_Italia
I remember the Irpinia earthquake in 1980 which in 60 seconds Killed 2735 people injured 8848 and more or less destroyed 70 towns.
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It's not all wonderful:
http://www.savebritainsheritage.org
What an appalling comment! In my experience pride in heritage comes from all people in all social classes.
Look at those fighting to save their northern terraced housing.
http://www.savebritainsheritage.org
What an appalling comment! In my experience pride in heritage comes from all people in all social classes.
Look at those fighting to save their northern terraced housing.
Penners
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middi said:
ljn said:
As compared with two people who are, in various ways, Italy-dwellers, I'm boxing way above my weight here on the basis of a few (wonderful) holidays in Italy. But for what it's worth, I believe you're both right - in different ways.
The Italians do indeed take an enormous pride in, and great care of, their great buildings in their many historic towns and cities. No more, nor less, than we do.
But in the more bucolic and remote parts of the country, you'll see a much greater number of crumbling, neglected old vernacular buildings than you do in the UK.
That, at least, is my thinly-gathered impression.
Nemesis
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Now remind me - when SAVE staged the Destruction of the Country House exhibition at the V and A - was it the working classes who had been wielding the wrecking ball?
http://www.vam.ac.uk/images/image/26533-popup.html
And this struggle certainly is driven by folk who I doubt would describe themselves as the upper echelons:
http://www.eh8.org.uk
http://www.vam.ac.uk/images/image/26533-popup.html
And this struggle certainly is driven by folk who I doubt would describe themselves as the upper echelons:
http://www.eh8.org.uk
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The Italians tend to like everything that has had money spent on it to look like it has had money spent on it, so there's little appreciation of the idea of "pleasing decay" and rather a lot of heavy-handed restoration to an imagined "former glory", using modern materials faked up to look old.
That does seem to be a very standard attitude round the Med, which doesn't happen so much in Northern Europe.
And inserting concrete into old buildings tends to stiffen them up so they don't "bounce" so much - the bounce can be a good thing - as evidenced by the different levels of damage suffered by mediaeval lime-based buildings and early twentieth century concrete onee in the Bishopsgate bombings in the 90s (not counting, of course, St Ethelburga's but that was a special case as the second bomb went off immediately outside)
That does seem to be a very standard attitude round the Med, which doesn't happen so much in Northern Europe.
And inserting concrete into old buildings tends to stiffen them up so they don't "bounce" so much - the bounce can be a good thing - as evidenced by the different levels of damage suffered by mediaeval lime-based buildings and early twentieth century concrete onee in the Bishopsgate bombings in the 90s (not counting, of course, St Ethelburga's but that was a special case as the second bomb went off immediately outside)
Nemesis
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I would also suggest that LJN mistakes 'pride' with ability to articulate concerns within the UK's hideously unintelligible planning system...
Obviously the English vs Italians is an unhelpful generalisation.
I just wanted to defend the under represented italian demographic on the forum, pointing out the misunderstanding of the word "Locale", the fact that Italians do take pride in their heritage, and that the use of lime is pretty standard in conservation.
Anti- seismic concrete reinforcement is the legal requirement and the COs and engineers are the authority and owners have to go by their decision. Of course, I'd say you could still discuss wether it's right or wrong
.
I agree with Gareth: Italian's often have less fascination for pleasing decay.
I do miss the decaying, flood damaged facades of 70's Florence with the communists vs fascist graffiti, but that decay, fascinating to the visitor, was a sign of neglect through poverty and war. The restored buildings do look a bit like a film set. I'm a big fan of decay.
But back in the UK, Looking down my street where most the windows are plastic, new roofs are synthetic tiles, leading to the 70's awful shopping centre carved into the old town centre, I somehow get the idea that of pride in the town architecture has somewere got dwindled...
Most people don't care about their town and see the houses on the street as private property where owners have a right to do what they want. There is little awareness of conservation areas. I think it's Its more about the rise of individualism described in Adam Curtis' BBC "The Century of the Self" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUqmkFIQjCU&feature=related than a difficult planning system.
My experience in Italy is that more or less everyone sees the street as their own and any attempt to change it is seen as a change to "our street" and any changes would need approval. Infact, any Italian is aware that to do any renovation work, to any building, internal or external, you have to put a sign stating what the works are, the permission sought and the responsible parties, Any warden or member of one of the 13 different police forces can and will investigate if they see some plaster dust. . .
The class rich/poor is another unhelpful generalisation.
I have been a member of two conservation committees. While in poor areas, all the members of both committees were white middle class.
I'd even guess that most people in this forum are somehow middle class.
I just wanted to defend the under represented italian demographic on the forum, pointing out the misunderstanding of the word "Locale", the fact that Italians do take pride in their heritage, and that the use of lime is pretty standard in conservation.
Anti- seismic concrete reinforcement is the legal requirement and the COs and engineers are the authority and owners have to go by their decision. Of course, I'd say you could still discuss wether it's right or wrong
. I agree with Gareth: Italian's often have less fascination for pleasing decay.
I do miss the decaying, flood damaged facades of 70's Florence with the communists vs fascist graffiti, but that decay, fascinating to the visitor, was a sign of neglect through poverty and war. The restored buildings do look a bit like a film set. I'm a big fan of decay.
But back in the UK, Looking down my street where most the windows are plastic, new roofs are synthetic tiles, leading to the 70's awful shopping centre carved into the old town centre, I somehow get the idea that of pride in the town architecture has somewere got dwindled...
Most people don't care about their town and see the houses on the street as private property where owners have a right to do what they want. There is little awareness of conservation areas. I think it's Its more about the rise of individualism described in Adam Curtis' BBC "The Century of the Self" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUqmkFIQjCU&feature=related than a difficult planning system.
My experience in Italy is that more or less everyone sees the street as their own and any attempt to change it is seen as a change to "our street" and any changes would need approval. Infact, any Italian is aware that to do any renovation work, to any building, internal or external, you have to put a sign stating what the works are, the permission sought and the responsible parties, Any warden or member of one of the 13 different police forces can and will investigate if they see some plaster dust. . .
The class rich/poor is another unhelpful generalisation.
I have been a member of two conservation committees. While in poor areas, all the members of both committees were white middle class.
I'd even guess that most people in this forum are somehow middle class.
Nemesis
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The 'under represented Italian demographic' ? It 's actually PPUK of course.
Eh? We have middi, and who knows who else? I've never asked what nationality anyone is. Or indeed what 'class'! I'd suggest that maybe the 'working classes' care but maybe just don't feel able to serve on some 'conservation committees'.
I do however have close contact with a national conservation group (or indeed several) and I think that many calls for help come from those who would not describe themselves as anything but 'working class'.
Yes - all those middle class planners and architects and developers and politicians and business owners who foist these things on us in the name of profit?
Oh - me dad was a colliery platelayer,who had to leave school at 14 as his dad had returned from WW1 too ill to work and look after the family, and I was brought up in a Tyneside flat with a tin bath and outide netty. Not sure what 'class' that makes me, but during tender teenage years I was active in trying to stop the destruction of my native Newcastle by the middle class T Dan Smith, John Poulsen etc etc.
It wasn't us who demolished everything for the 'Brazilia of the Nort'h. Just we didn't have the power to stop it..
Eh? We have middi, and who knows who else? I've never asked what nationality anyone is. Or indeed what 'class'! I'd suggest that maybe the 'working classes' care but maybe just don't feel able to serve on some 'conservation committees'.
I do however have close contact with a national conservation group (or indeed several) and I think that many calls for help come from those who would not describe themselves as anything but 'working class'.
Yes - all those middle class planners and architects and developers and politicians and business owners who foist these things on us in the name of profit?
Oh - me dad was a colliery platelayer,who had to leave school at 14 as his dad had returned from WW1 too ill to work and look after the family, and I was brought up in a Tyneside flat with a tin bath and outide netty. Not sure what 'class' that makes me, but during tender teenage years I was active in trying to stop the destruction of my native Newcastle by the middle class T Dan Smith, John Poulsen etc etc.
It wasn't us who demolished everything for the 'Brazilia of the Nort'h. Just we didn't have the power to stop it..
Penners
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Tin bath? You were looky... etc. etc. etc.Nemesis said:
Nemesis
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I know. It had a hole in it...
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There's certainly a growing awareness of lime in Italian conservation circles, as the thriving membership of the Italian equivalent of the Building Limes Forum illustrates. As I write there's a major conference in Florence organsed by the Forum Italiano Calce - http://www.forumcalce.it/convegnocalce08/convegnocalce08_benvenuto.html
“My experience in Italy is that more or less everyone sees the street as their own and any attempt to change it is seen as a change to our street….”
Not sure if I would agree with that statement. Most Italians it would seem live in apartments rather than houses and these range from old palazzos with internal courtyards and sweeping stone staircases in the centre of the old cities to bland rectangular 1960’s tower blocks in the suburbs. In my experience, most Italians care more about the internal fit out of their home rather than what’s going on out side. You can walk through village’s towns and cities where the buildings are covered with graffiti. On the older buildings, electrical and lighting cable is haphazardly strewn across the building facades and entry/exit points for these services are often crudely dug out holes in the wall backfilled with a rough coat of cement. Pavements where they exist, appear to be an untended, dusty haven for weeds and dog mess.
Immaculately kept parks and lawns within these neighbourhoods are practically unheard of. Walk in through the doors of these dwellings however and you will often find beautiful ceramic or marble tiling and the latest kitchen, bathroom and lighting designs from Milan or alternatively expensive antique furniture and Murano chandeliers.
I recently went on a trip to the flat plains of Campania in southern Italy where the agricultural countryside is pock marked with dreadful fast build concrete framed villas (houses). Speaking to a friend of mine out there it would seem that most Italians favour these new builds rather than restoring their existing stone buildings. Those stone buildings that have escaped demolition are being bought up and restored by either Germans or Brits, not the Italians. Italians want new build. I suspect that old agricultural buildings remind them of their poverty stricken past where not that long ago many agricultural communities shared their homes with the livestock. Also young people don’t want to follow in the path of their parents and go into agriculture. They want a nice smart office job and they no doubt convince their parents (who they still live with) that a nice smart concrete building with all mod cons is just what they need.
It’s sad really. The Old Italian landscape and architecture that was once so charming is fast dissapearing due to natural deterioration and lack of care and the rapid advance of ugly modernism at least as far as vernacular buildings are concerened.
Not sure if I would agree with that statement. Most Italians it would seem live in apartments rather than houses and these range from old palazzos with internal courtyards and sweeping stone staircases in the centre of the old cities to bland rectangular 1960’s tower blocks in the suburbs. In my experience, most Italians care more about the internal fit out of their home rather than what’s going on out side. You can walk through village’s towns and cities where the buildings are covered with graffiti. On the older buildings, electrical and lighting cable is haphazardly strewn across the building facades and entry/exit points for these services are often crudely dug out holes in the wall backfilled with a rough coat of cement. Pavements where they exist, appear to be an untended, dusty haven for weeds and dog mess.
Immaculately kept parks and lawns within these neighbourhoods are practically unheard of. Walk in through the doors of these dwellings however and you will often find beautiful ceramic or marble tiling and the latest kitchen, bathroom and lighting designs from Milan or alternatively expensive antique furniture and Murano chandeliers.
I recently went on a trip to the flat plains of Campania in southern Italy where the agricultural countryside is pock marked with dreadful fast build concrete framed villas (houses). Speaking to a friend of mine out there it would seem that most Italians favour these new builds rather than restoring their existing stone buildings. Those stone buildings that have escaped demolition are being bought up and restored by either Germans or Brits, not the Italians. Italians want new build. I suspect that old agricultural buildings remind them of their poverty stricken past where not that long ago many agricultural communities shared their homes with the livestock. Also young people don’t want to follow in the path of their parents and go into agriculture. They want a nice smart office job and they no doubt convince their parents (who they still live with) that a nice smart concrete building with all mod cons is just what they need.
It’s sad really. The Old Italian landscape and architecture that was once so charming is fast dissapearing due to natural deterioration and lack of care and the rapid advance of ugly modernism at least as far as vernacular buildings are concerened.
Gareth Hughes
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Not unlike the current situation in much of rural Ireland, then. A the risk of annoying the class warriors on this thread, what's happening is a rapid and recent transition from a peasant society with no money to spend, and few mod cons, and little access to imported (therefore expensive) materials - all of which resulted in a true vernacular tradition; to a sudden availability of disposable wealth in reasonable quantities, and the desire to show off that new status by "modernising" (and discarding the often painful reminders of what is thought of as having been a substandard and shameful way of life).
In England at least, that transition happened in the nineteenth century and with the benefit of over 100 years of mellowing, the incongruous imported materials and wealth-flaunting ornament of many of the houses and other buildings thrown up during our great change now seem to be quaint period pieces. There is also the advantage that the materials used, while often alien to a particular locality, were still ones that had some chance of looking OK and performing well after a few years.
But such was the trauma of England's industrialisation (and the new availability of money and transport to most of the masses), that within a few decades of it starting, old nostalgics like William Morris were condemning it in much the same terms that we are now fretting about Italy. So it'll be interesting to see if events follow a similar course there.
In England at least, that transition happened in the nineteenth century and with the benefit of over 100 years of mellowing, the incongruous imported materials and wealth-flaunting ornament of many of the houses and other buildings thrown up during our great change now seem to be quaint period pieces. There is also the advantage that the materials used, while often alien to a particular locality, were still ones that had some chance of looking OK and performing well after a few years.
But such was the trauma of England's industrialisation (and the new availability of money and transport to most of the masses), that within a few decades of it starting, old nostalgics like William Morris were condemning it in much the same terms that we are now fretting about Italy. So it'll be interesting to see if events follow a similar course there.
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But the same could be said for most societies through the ages:
Yes, many of the problems now are caused by the use of modern and to our minds inappropriate materials. But I don't think this is always a class thing, all those 'executive' estates thrown up for the 'middle classes'? We have 'em in quantity here, engulfing our traditional buildings.
Even then, we are one of the few to still have timber windows. Everyone else is ripping them out for uPVC - and I'm not talking here of artisan's dwellings but certainly ones worth a bob or two. (Even some new builds which the council insisted had timber 'to fit in with existing' , which of course is laughable as all now predominantly uPVC, as soon as passed as OK have had the perfectly sound timber windows ripped out and replaced by uPVC).
Even our local GP has put placcy windows and a ghastly new uPVC door on her stone 19th c house.
Look at how many wealthy families tore down (or put up a new facade) the ancestral mansion in past times to raise another far more trendy one in its place, by upstarts with names like Adam and imported ideas about architecture based on ancient Greece and Rome. Local tradition re timber framing etc ignored, stone imported...
Yes, many of the problems now are caused by the use of modern and to our minds inappropriate materials. But I don't think this is always a class thing, all those 'executive' estates thrown up for the 'middle classes'? We have 'em in quantity here, engulfing our traditional buildings.
Even then, we are one of the few to still have timber windows. Everyone else is ripping them out for uPVC - and I'm not talking here of artisan's dwellings but certainly ones worth a bob or two. (Even some new builds which the council insisted had timber 'to fit in with existing' , which of course is laughable as all now predominantly uPVC, as soon as passed as OK have had the perfectly sound timber windows ripped out and replaced by uPVC).
Even our local GP has put placcy windows and a ghastly new uPVC door on her stone 19th c house.