Construction techniques in nineteenth-century Greece and their impact on today's restoration projects

Nineteenth-century architecture is characterised by its emphasis on form. That was particularly intense in Greece, due to the strong ideological context. According to this, the newly independent State should reconnect with the glorious past of classical antiquity. As a result, the resemblance of new buildings to classical models was more important than technical perfection. That conviction often counterbalanced the absence of the latest achievements in construction techniques that had taken place since the Industrial Revolution, since their introduction in Greece was slow, due to financial problems, but also due to the country's geographical isolation from the industrialised countries. The above particularities can be testified not only through field observation, but are also documented by archival sources. This results in buildings with important construction deficiencies, which pose major problems in their restoration. This essay gives examples of related nineteenth-century documents and of today's restoration projects that had to deal with those problems.