381 Rammed Earth Conservation – Mileto, Vegas & Cristini (eds) © 2012 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-415-62125-0 Restoration of rammed earth architecture in the Iberian Peninsula: Ongoing research C. Mileto, F. Vegas López-Manzanares, V. Cristini & L. García Soriano Instituto de Restauración del Patrimonio, Universitat Politècnica de València, Valencia, Spain ABSTRACT: The Iberian Peninsula represents the geographic area of Europe with the largest amount of architecture built out of rammed earth. For some time now, all the variants of this building method have been studied and yielded very important results. On the other hand, quite a few interventions have been carried out on historic rammed earth buildings. We can affirm that since the nineteen eighties, more and more interventions have been carried out on rammed earth constructions, both monumental and vernacular, all over the Peninsula. The interventions performed on this historic heritage have been different as regards reconstruction, conservation, repairs, substitution, structural consolidation, etc. The criteria, techniques, materials and actions put into practice have also been different. The research pre- sented here strives to pool the experiences of restoring the monumental architectonic heritage in the Iberian Peninsula in order to learn from these interventions and draw conclusions and perspectives for the future. 2 GROUNDS AND REASONS FOR THE RESEARCH In the last thirty years, many interventions have been carried out in the Iberian Peninsula on our monumental rammed earth architectonic heritage. Thirty years ago, when the first actions were car- ried out (Niebla City walls, 1979), there was a scant corpus of knowledge about building techniques, but still less was known about the sort of interven- tions to carry out. In time, the professionals and technicians who took part in this type of archi- tecture experimented with criteria and techniques related with their knowledge and experience to achieve the best possible results. The intervention criteria, the techniques used and the results obtained have been diverse, but in many cases it was not possible to consult the experience of other technicians because knowledge and experiences were fragmented by the geographic distance between professionals. At the present time, the conservation of rammed earth architecture from the point of view of the criteria and techniques used has hardly been studied at all from a general point of view (Viñuales 1981, Odul 1993, Warren 1999; Warren 2001, Pignal 2005, AA. VV. 2004, AA.VV. 2008, Boussalh 2005, Correia 2007, CRATerre 1993, Guillaud 2001, Graciani 2008), although there are many publications about the restoration of several concrete examples of intervention on certain monuments (Niebla City Walls, Toral de los Guzmanes, Granada City Walls, 1 FOREWORD The research presented below is being carried out thanks to the project “La restauración de la arquitectura de tapia en la Península Ibérica. Criterios, técnicas, resultados y perspectivas” (The restoration of rammed earth architecture in the Iberian Peninsula. Criteria, techniques, results and perspectives, ref. BIA 2010-18921), granted by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under the National Grant Scheme for the year 2010. The research put into practice aims to analyze the restoration works carried out from the eighties until the present in order to evaluate the criteria and techniques used and the results obtained over the years, along with the evolution these criteria and techniques have undergone over the years. The initial date is in the eighties, since it coincides with the arrival of democracy in both Spain and Portugal and the political and administrative changes that came about and the different intervention policy on monuments that ensued regarding the criteria and the professionals involved. The analysis has been carried out from a multidisciplinary point of view, involving researchers and collaborators from different fields: architects, quantity surveyors, archaeologists, historians, art historians, restorers, engineers, petrologists, etc. The research team also relied on the important collaboration of scientists, whose mission was to oversee the project at all times.