What future for restoration?

The Italian city of Ferrara has again organised the Fiera del Restauro, the world's largest specialised fair in the field of restoration.

Over 30,000 visitors toured the 278 stands, over an area of 16,000 square metres. Various countries were represented by stands.

The fair also held an exhibition of some 300 panels entitled "From Restoration to Conservation". This exhibition was inaugurated by Dr Ray Bondin who spoke about the importance of giving information about good projects all over the world. The exhibition (which will be moving to Gubbio in June and to Rome in September) highlights recent conservation projects: the exhibition is being used as a basis for a comparative study of best practice.

The exhibition includes four panels prepared by ICOMOS Malta on the design of Shirley Cefai and with text by Dr David Mallia: the Malta panels speak about projects undertaken in the Grand Masters' Palace of Valletta by the Valletta Rehabilitation Project, of which Dr Bondin is executive co-ordinator.

The fair included various seminars, one of which was organised by the University of Milan. Dr Bondin inaugurated this seminar, which discussed the importance of maintenance. A number of important restoration experts and university professors presented papers.

Dr Bondin spoke about the need for more financing of maintenance projects and of ensuring that all restoration projects have an inbuilt system for future maintenance. The seminar also discussed how future restoration projects should be designed.

Dr Bondin was also among the speakers at another seminar dealing with world heritage. In this seminar, organised by the Italian Ministry for Cultural Property and Activity, he represented ICCROM, the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property. (Dr Bondin is an elected member of the ICCROM council.) He spoke about the importance of training, not only of conservators and architects, but also of personnel working in this field.