Reinforced masonry, traditional wall structures linked with iron elements: components of Genoese pre-industrial architecture.

This paper, submitted to the Science and Cultural Heritage 2015 Conference, gives an insight of the current state of a research that is the continuation of the special project "Construction vaulted brickwork". (“Costruzioni voltate in muratura”) That special project was a MURST 40% initiative, with the participation of Dipartimento di Costruzioni Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l’Architettura Genova, Facoltà di Architettura Siracusa, Facoltà di Ingegneria Catania, Dipartimento di Costruzione dell’Architettura I.U.A.V Venezia, I.S.T.C. Ancona, Dipartimento di Costruzioni e Metodi Matematici in Architettura Federico II di Napoli, Facoltà di Archeologia Medievale Siena, Politecnico Torino. That initial research found that the period between the sixteenth and eighteenth century gave origin to technical solutions that were new and innovative, in comparison with the ones used before. As a matter of fact iron elements were increasingly used in that period, with various co-operating schemes and effectiveness, and this allowed the realization of solution that were very daring and bold for that time. The spread of these techniques was investigated at regional level, based on direct analysis of existing structures. Than the paper widens the scope to reach the comparison with different regional realities, the analysis of solution effectiveness and the study on the degree of awareness of ancient builders. This research also produced guidelines to estimate the chance that invisible historical iron elements lay hidden inside walls, without the need of sophisticated analyses. This is a very interesting and useful technique for conservation yards having the target to preserve the architectural assets they operate on.