The field of conservation-restoration, by virtue of its fundamental goal—the conservation of cultural heritage for future generations—is sustainability oriented at its core. This culturally sustainable orientation forms the foundation of conservation-restoration theory. Beyond the preservation of cultural capital, there is something else contributing to this sustainable orientation, namely the economically, socially, and environmentally responsible conservation of cultural heritage, whether carried out in the studio or in the field.
In the conservation-restoration of artworks in public spaces and those that are part of architectural heritage, i.e. when conducting field monitoring and carrying out interventions on artworks, or collections of artworks in a certain area (archaeological parks, forma vivas, etc.) as well as on corpuses of related artworks in a specific but geographically broader area (sacral monuments, monuments to the National Liberation Struggle, etc.), experts face additional sustainability challenges. The treatment of such artworks is usually inextricably linked to a specific space, architecture, and its specific features, more variable environmental conditions, longer-distance transport, greater social involvement, and greater financial investments. In such cases, regular preventive monitoring and ongoing maintenance are, in many respects, more sustainable than conservation-restoration interventions made necessary by neglect and consequent deterioration of these artworks. However, even in curative conservation-restoration interventions, energy and resource consumption can be reduced through the use of more environmentally acceptable materials, and by improving processes and activities to minimise their environmental, economic, and socio-cultural costs.
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