Műemlék-helyreállítások tegnap, ma, holnap (A 27. Egri Nyári Egyetem előadásai 1997 Eger, 1997)

Előadások - Ismini TRIANTI: Restoration work carried out on the Acropolis of Athen

A primary goal was the removal of the Caryatids and their placement in the Acropolis Museum in order to protect them from the disastrous effects of atmospheric pollution, Afterwards all the elements that were restored by Balanos were dismantled completely, in order to remove the iron from the surfaces and the mass of the reconstructed ancient marble pieces. The restored blocks were remowed from the south wall, the south porch, the upper courses of the west wall, the roof of the north porch and the north wall. On the whole about 720 members of marble structure were removed. The broken individual members were rejoined by titanium rods in the place of iron rods used previously. The chief properties of titanium are that it has all the structural strength of iron, that it is as light as aluminium and, most importantly, that it does not oxydise. During the process of dismantling the monument, erroneous replacements of previous restorations were observed. The percentage surpassed ninety per cent of the surviving authentic material. The gaps due to breaks especially in the corners of the blocks were filled in with complements in new pentelic marble, worked with the help of pantographs. There was a problem of the finishing of the bloks of new pentelic marble of the south and north wall in their interior face, because the surface of the original clocks in burnt by fire in ancient times. Some of are smoothed, as if intact others are left worked with the point. At the same time, the reconstruction of the northeast corner of the east porch was decided, with copies of the northeast column and its capital, the architrave of the porch facade and the capital of the anta of the nort wall which are currently in the British Museum. Thus the Monument apart its more complete didactic and aesthetic value gained greater resistance to seismic activity. Cast copies of the Caryatids took the place of the originals in the South Porch. THE PARTHENON The periclean Parthenon one of the largest temples of Antiquity, was built in a very short time, betweeen, the years 447 and 438 B. C. A further five years were needed to place the sculptures in position on the pediments. The architects were Ictinos and Kallikrates. The sculptor in chief of the whole work, was Pheidias. It had two interior rooms and a colonnade with 8 to 17 columns. The porches of the cella were also prostyle, hexastyle by analogy. The Monument was decorated with sculptures on the pediments, 92 metopes on the colonnade and a continuous ionic frieze over the cella. In full development since 1986, the restoration of the Parthenon with Manolis Korrés as architect in charge, and Kostas Zambas as civil engineer, far exceeds the older interventions on the monument in its extant quality and total cost. It is aiming at conserving the existing structure and the stone surfaces, the correct repositioning of stones that are wrongly sited in previous works of restoration and the filling in and partial restoration of certain portions chiefly through the reincorporation of existing fallen material that has been identified around the buildings. For organisational reasons the Parthenon project has been divided into partial progrmas. These programs to a total number of twelve, correspond to a logical division of the surviving part of the building on the basis of certain criteria. The programs have no relation to the actual chronological sequence of execution of the various works. To this date programm one has been completed, together with parts of programm three, eight, nine and ten. The intervention began from the east side because of the damage that has been caused to the two east corners of the building, by the great earthquake of February 24th, 1981. The pediment, the original cornice, the