Scientific monitoring and documentation of the Venaria Reale restoration sites

The Venaria Reale is a huge baroque architectural complex near Turin, dating from the second half of the XVII century onwards and it is part of the so called “Corona di Delitie”, this is the complex ring of ducal residencies outside the capital. They all made up an articulated system of loisir residences and large areas of state land, some of which with hunting rights. In 1999 a great restoration began, financed by Italian Government and European Union.A new multidisciplinary working team (specialists working in the fields of history of art and architecture, archaeology, surveys of the historical architecture, structural analysis and chemical characterization of the materials) was then currently created by Regione Piemonte, together with Soprintendenze del Piemonte, Politecnico di Torino, Università di Torino, to operate in Venaria Reale in order to collect, process, document, manage, coordinate and analyse, almost in real time, the huge amounts of data resulting from restoration work. The principal goals of the working group are: Research and scientific monitoring, Documentation and Database. The innovative aim in this experience is: first, creating an integrated and multidisciplinary working team, which is operating while the building site is open; second, taking advantage of the restoration to accumulate knowledge about historical architecture, knowledge which wouldn’t be recoverable after the restoration is done, neither before work starts; third, helping and sustaining agencies, architects, firms involved in the restoration, in order to help understanding and take right decisions in relation to just excavated structures and every time a deepening of knowledge is requested.