Sustainability: balance between external climate and environmental conditions in museums – the Historic Archive of Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa and São Roque Museum

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Luís Elias Casanovas

Abstract

The study of the sustainability of solutions to ensure appropriate environmental conditions in museum institutions begins when the cost of fuel makes it imperative to save energy and imposes the need to reflect on ways to reduce energy consumption, necessary to meet the standards set, with increasing rigidity, for the temperature and relative humidity, whose kindness, in fact, was questioned long ago. The building has an important role in this process, and, in our case, it is possible to achieve a remarkable stability between the external climate and the needs of conservation, provided it respects the characteristics of historic buildings and the collections past, with the minimum intervention, as recommended in the New Orleans Charter principles. As an example of this, are presented two cases, which were the base of the communication made at the Conference Going Greene: towards sustainability in conservation, in the British Museum, in April, 24, 2009: a XVII century Palace, and the XVI century Professed House of the Jesuits. Both belong to the Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa – a welfare institution founded in the XIV century.

Keywords: Sustainability, Hygroscopic inertia, Confirmed fluctuations, Environmental conditions

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