Conserving Concrete Heritage Experts Meeting

In 2014, the Conservation Institute convened a multidisciplinary group of experts for the Conserving Concrete Heritage Experts Meeting to identify current needs in the field and actions that could be implemented by the Institute to help advance the field of concrete conservation. This meeting was an outgrowth of the Colloquium to Advance the Practice of Conserving Modern Heritage (2013), which confirmed the need to focus attention on the conservation of a variety of typical twentieth-century building materials, including concrete.

The meeting included engineers, architects, material scientists, educators, and industry representatives with demonstrated expertise in the repair of historic concrete buildings and structures.

The meeting's goals were to identify:

• research needs
• ways to advance this area of material conservation
• priorities for work
• entities able to progress these priorities
• the scope of research on the conservation of concrete that Getty could undertake
• potential partners and stakeholders to work with in this area
• a plan of action to implement the research and other activities

The Conserving Concrete Heritage Experts Meeting Report, summarizes issues identified by participants, which include lack of understanding of concrete repair methods such as patch repair and hydrophobic coatings and lack of guidelines on proper concrete conservation methodology. Other points of concern were insufficient training opportunities for professionals and general lack of information sources, such as case study publications, repair techniques, and research.