Summary of the Proceedings and Papers Presented at - World ...

The House of the Silver Wedding
Anniversary: the Kress Pompeii
Conservation Project
by John H. Stubbs
The Kress Pompeii Conservation Project (KPCP)
began in May 1998 as an endeavor to establish new
and more effective approaches to conserving and
presenting the typical architectural fabric of ancient
Pompeii. The KPCP was aimed at drafting a restoration and
conservation project for a representative house in Pompeii
and a plan for the conservation, presentation and maintenance
of an entire insula.
The development of the project is the result of collaboration
over a period of three years between the Soprintendenza
Archeologica di Pompei ed Ercolano and the World
Monuments Fund. It entailed research, documentation, and
planning as parts of a first phase dedicated to conservation
planning. After implementation and critical evaluation by the
Soprintendenza and the project development team, it is expected
that the project may serve as a model for restoration
and conservation elsewhere at Pompeii and its environs as
increasing amounts of public and private funding becomes
available to the Soprintendenza.
The methodology of this project entailed the use of a
number of experts in several related fields who worked on
italiano
the physical task of thoroughly analyzing all aspects of the
House of the Silver Wedding Anniversary, and, to a lesser extent,
the insula in which it is found. The generous support of
the Samuel H. Kress Foundation for this prototypical study
permitted a precedent in tackling the challenge of conserving
Pompeii and other sites in the region, namely the application
of both a holistic and an integrated multi-disciplinary approach
under the direct leadership of the Soprintendenza, in
close collaboration with the WMF.
The key components of the project—architecture, engineering,
materials conservation, site planning and interpretation—each
had their own ‘stream leaders’. The highlights
of those streams of specialty analyses and their conclusions
are presented herewith as a basis for the concluding presentation
by architect Paolo Marconi, who explains how these
components have informed and will be incorporated into
his extraordinary proposal to restore and display the House
of the Silver Wedding Anniversary. The House of the Silver
Wedding Anniversary project remains only a concept at this
time. It is WMF’s understanding that the project is being
prepared for competitive construction bidding and will be
funded by the Soprintendenza.