Due to environmental damage, overpainting, thermal insulation and widespread ignorance, sgraffito decorations are seriously threatened in their original existence:
Often only small parts of the original elements have survived. A European cooperation is therefore necessary in order to quickly get the problems of practical restoration under control as well as to adequately highlight their cultural and historical significance.
The Hornemann Institute promotes a European network for research into sgraffito in terms of its materials, techniques, themes and conservation strategies. The joint exchange serves the quality assurance of the restoration of sgraffito decorations:
Decision-makers in the field of monument conservation are to be made aware of the cultural and historical significance of sgraffito decorations and the problems of their preservation.
The project promotes current research questions on the history of the development of sgraffito decorations in Europe, including their beginnings in Italy and Spain and their further technical development (single-ply, double-ply, mixed techniques and similar).
Renowned scientists from the most important European countries will be brought together to work out concrete solutions for endangered sgraffito decorations on the basis of representative case studies.
The cataloguing of sgraffiti is being promoted.
The project title "Sgraffito in change" is deliberately ambiguous: On the one hand, it is about the analysis of the thematic as well as material/technical change from the Middle Ages to the late 20th century.
On the other hand, it also deals with the change in the stock of preserved sgraffito decorations, which almost all examples have experienced as a result of later conservation measures.
So far there have been two conferences, a third is planned for 2021 in Segovia:
First publications:
Sgraffito in Change. Materials, Techniques, Themes and Conservation / Materials, Techniques, Topics, and Preservation. Conference Papers of the international Conference at the HAWK Hildesheim/Holzminden/ Göttingen, 2 - 4 November 2017 in Hildesheim, ed. by Angela Weyer and Kerstin Klein, Petersberg 2019, pp. 12-27 (= Writings of the Hornemann Institute 19; Workbooks on the Preservation of Historical Monuments in Lower Saxony 51)
in it:
Ellesat-Brümmer, Anneli: Sgraffiti in Hildesheim - New findings on material and technology of selected facades of pre and post war architecture, p. 252-265, doi: 10.5165/HAWK-HHG/445
Weyer, Angela: Scratched pictures. Introduction to the Hildesheim conference "Sgraffito in Change", p. 12-27, doi: 10.5165/HAWK-HHG/460
Angela Weyer, Anneli Ellesat-Brümmer: Sgraffito in Change. Materials, Techniques, Topics, and Preservation. The Hildesheim Sgraffito Conference in 2017 and the sgraffito decorations in Hildesheim, in: Sgraffito In Change. Original Realization vs. Secondary Interventions, International conference of the University of Pardubice, 21-22 November 2019, Litomyšl Castle, ed. by Jan Vojtěchovský and Petra Heckova (expected to be published at the end of 2020)
Photo: Litomyšl Castle, UNESCO World Heritage Site, 1568-1681 (Photo: Agnete 2014)
