Care needed for heritage sites

Care needed for heritage sites

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

The modern touch is not always good, especially when it is
applied to heritage buildings. Not only can it reduce the
buildings' aesthetic features, it can lead to a further
deterioration of the structure of the buildings, an expert says.

Bruce Pettman, visiting principal heritage architect of the
Australian state of New South Wales government called on heritage
building managements to take prudent care in their efforts to
conserve heritage buildings.

"The managements should first carry out careful analysis on
the methods and the materials used in the original construction,"
Pettman told a seminar titled "Rising Damp in Heritage Buildings"
on Saturday, which was attended by the managers of several
heritage buildings in Jakarta, representatives of museums,
architects and heritage lovers.

Wrong approaches applied in restoration would only weaken or
even undermine the structure of older buildings, Pettman said.

"The common use of lime to paint walls as we see in old
buildings has helped these walls to 'breathe', while modern kinds
of paints using waterproof substances such as plastic and acrylic
only make the buildings damp," he said.

Placing layers of sand under the floors of Jakarta's old
buildings was another example of an old practice that enabled the
buildings 'to breath', he explained. "Covering the ground with
concrete will only lead to poor ventilation below floor level."

According to Pettman, making an old building 'able to breath'
is of paramount importance in staving off rising damp, meaning
the infiltration of ground moisture carrying salts in solution,
which poses a serious threat to the fabric of buildings.

Rising damp is normally associated with certain causes, like
poor ventilation below floor level, a porous building fabric, a
high water table, and poor ground-surface water management.

According to Pettman, heritage building managers should pay
much more attention to the problem of rising damp as most older
buildings had limited damp-proof courses.

Jakarta, whose official history says the city is more than 450
years old, is home to hundreds of heritage buildings.
Unfortunately, many of them are in severe disrepair due to aging,
poor maintenance and neglect.

Critics say that the Jakarta administration has paid little
attention to heritage buildings in the city.

The Luar Batang Mosque in Penjaringan, North Jakarta, dated
1739, was recently given a face-over and emerged as a modern
building. Heritage lovers blasted the so-called "renovation",
which changed the original face of the 200-year-old mosque, which
originally featured a combination of European and Hindu
architectural styles.

Arya Abieta, an architect attending the seminar, deplored the
ignorance of heritage building managers as regards the problem of
rising damp.

"I notice that the managers of the presidential palaces in
Bogor and Jakarta have taken out the sand-filled foundations in
the basements and replaced them with marble for kitchen and
storage rooms," he told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of the
seminar.

Arya said that the marble had led to rising damp in many parts
of the buildings.

"The government should not look at the restoration of old
buildings as annual projects that should be done within a year
without actually assessing the best way of going about it."