Aghios Konstantinos church in Athens. Conservation planning

This piece shows the conservation project made for Aghios Konstantinos church, Athens, Greece. Starting from the investigation of the urban development of the city, passing through the study of the architectural grammar of the building and eventually addressing to the material characterisation and pathologies of the church, this work tries to provide a strong analytical support for the conservation intervention. We investigated Athens urban development dividing the timeline in eight phases, from the Ancient Age until now. Aim of this task is to supply a strong understanding of why Aghios Konstantinos church was built in a particular point of the city, and which are its historic and artistic values that need to be preserved and passed on future generations. We narrowed the focus of our investigation lens afterwards. We studied the building concentrating on its architectural grammar. Precisely, the architectural style is both complex and traditional: Kaftantzoglou, the author, tried to merge byzantine elements with classical ones, in a modern eclectic-neo-classical shape. We examined material characterisation and investigation of damage using NORMAL tables, separating different materials and individuating typical pathologies for each of them in the main façade. Atmospheric agents and, mainly, humidity caused most decays. Interventions on the façade were planned strictly respecting minimum interventum, sustainability and reversibility. Finally, a survey of structural damage indoors and outdoors revealed stability problems in the vault, in the arches, and in the pillars below. Although the church was built only in the 19th century, it showed serious structural damages, mainly caused by two strong earthquakes that occurred in 1981 and in 1999. The consolidation project focused on the dome: we planned a Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) hooping around it, calculating the strains on meridians and parallels and, eventually, applying a traction verification.