SPP 2255:  Construction as cultural heritage - Principles for engineering-based and interlinked conservation strategies for the built heritage of the high modern era.

• Subject Area: Construction Engineering and Architecture ; Humanities ; Geosciences
• Term: since 2020
• Website: Homepage
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 422730777

In many respects, the buildings of the high modern era (around 1880 to 1970) escape classical approaches to monument preservation. Not infrequently, their construction is the actual cultural heritage, because the load-bearing structure or the manufacturing process define the heritage value. However, a lack of fundamentals in construction history, monument theory and engineering science has severely hindered the development of adequate strategies and methods for the evaluation and preservation of this cultural heritage. This is where the priority program "Construction as Cultural Heritage" comes into play. Across disciplines, it operates in three thematic areas: 1. Refinement of construction history's coordinate system of the high modern era as an indispensable basis for a sound positioning and assessment of the cultural heritage construction (thematic area "surveying and classifying"). 2. Elaboration of new methods for an integral evaluation of the broad spectrum of different buildings and complex structures (thematic area "identification and evaluation"). 3. Development of networked strategies for the preservation and further development of this heritage (thematic area "Preservation and Development"). The priority program's coordination project promotes interdisciplinary and cross-location cooperation through the use of appropriate tools, ensures constant knowledge transfer and provides impulses for a cross-disciplinary development of the project work. In this way, the competences of the disciplines of historical sciences, monument preservation and civil engineering, which previously acted largely independently of each other, were bundled for the first time in the first phase of this priority program to form a unique interdisciplinary research network. This interconnection of disciplines opens numerous new perspectives on high modern building constructions as well as on better procedures for dealing adequately with this complex heritage. This path will be continued and further expanded in the program's second stage. To this end, the coordination project is complementing already established actions with new impulses such as increased attention to ecological factors or the inclusion of international perspectives. In this final program phase, particular attention will be given to sustainably consolidating the work field "engineering-based and networked heritage conservation", which is currently being established through the SPP. In the interest of immediate theory-practice transfer, specific conclusions will be disseminated to the respective specialist communities and decision-makers by means of recommendations and guidelines. Above all, however, a summarizing final volume of the SPP's publication series will present a concise overview of the historical development of high-modern building constructions and the manifold potentials for their valorization and further development.

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes
• International Connection: Belgium, Switzerland, United Kingdom

Projects

• Aged Hochmoderne in Architecture and Monument Preservation - Analysis of construction and material, development of maintenance strategies and repair materials for reinforced concrete structures under engineering and monument conservation aspects. (Applicants Auras, Michael ;  Duppel, Christoph ;  Middendorf, Bernhard ;  Orlowsky, Jeanette )
• Appreciation and Communication of construction inherent values. Heritage theoretical and practical challenges in dealing with engineering achievements of the ultramodern age (Applicants Angermann, Kirsten ;  Meier, Hans-Rudolf )
• Coordination Funds (Applicant Lorenz, Werner )
• Fail Successfully. On the significance of spin-offs for construction at the end of the high modern age (Applicants Bauer, Reinhold ;  Maier, Helmut ;  Meyer, Torsten )
• How to deal with historical concrete repairs? - Evaluation and handling of previous repair measures for exposed concrete buildings of the High Modernity. (Applicants Dauberschmidt, Christoph ;  Putz, Andreas )
• Iron-based structures of industrial heritage - Sensor-based and data-driven AI system for structural health monitoring of large-scale objects of industrial and cultural heritage (Applicants Prange, Michael ;  Walther, Frank )
• “Last Witnesses” – physical models in civil engineering – scientific meaning and conservation (Applicants Möller, Eberhard ;  Putz, Andreas ;  Weber, Christiane )
• Longitudinal truss churches and hidden steel structures in the sacred building of high modernity. Basic research on the survey and on preservation strategies. (Applicants Fissabre, Anke ;  Pottgiesser, Uta ;  Rottke, Evelin ;  Thiele, Klaus )
• Mass Monument Industrial Hall? Classification of steel construction system halls of the High Modernism period and their attribution for an automated airborne image-based acquisition (Applicants Gerke, Markus ;  Hoyer, Sebastian ;  Krafczyk, Christina )
• Materiality and authenticity of glass and glass construction in buildings from the period of modernity: documentation and analysis of material and constructions in building construction and preservation science (Applicants Bellendorf, Paul ;  Engelmann, Michael )
• Monument mass phenomenon system hall: Detection, classification and knowledge transfer based on model- and data-driven methods for a sustainable preservation (Applicants Gerke, Markus ;  Hoyer, Sebastian ;  Krafczyk, Christina )
• Plank trusses as material-saving timber structures in high modernism (Applicants Engelmann, Iris ;  Seim, Werner )
• Railroad Bridges – Monuments in the Network – Dynamic Balancing (Applicants Krafczyk, Christina ;  Marx, Steffen )
• Reconstruction and analysis of the historical development of lightweight steel and metal structures in the GDR using the model stock of the "Metalleichtbaukombinat Leipzig" (Applicants Albrecht, Helmuth ;  Thiele, Klaus )
• Steel railway bridges as a legacy of high modernity - Foundations for a holistic decision making between repair and renewal (Applicant Lorenz, Werner )
• Strategies and methods for evaluation and conservation of space frame structures in accordance with heritage conservation guidelines (Applicants Spiegel, Daniela ;  Zabel, Volkmar )
• Success and Failure: On the Contribution of Recognised Failures to the Development of Prestressed Concrete Construction (Applicant Marx, Steffen )

• Spokesperson: Professor Dr.-Ing. Werner Lorenz