Conservation of the Beira Railway Station in Mozambique: Lessons from a 20th-Century Heritage Case Study in Africa

Abstract

The conservation of built cultural heritage is a fundamental task for modern societies. Specialized expertise is necessary to define a proper strategy to preserve a heritage that is accumulating damage due to the deterioration of materials, repeated loading, and exceptional events. This paper provides part of the work developed for the definition of the Conservation Management Plan of a 20th-century building in Africa. The monumental building, the Beira railway station, is in Mozambique and was considered among the one hundred more important 20th-century Portuguese engineering buildings. The work presented focuses on the analysis of damage, material characterization, and assessment of the comfort conditions of this concrete building—fundamental tasks for the understanding of the current condition of the building and the definition of appropriate remedial actions and maintenance tasks. The work provides a detailed definition of different approaches and techniques that can be implemented for this type of building to obtain reliable information to define measures and actions that are more in line with the reality of the building. Moreover, the work allows for a discussion on the long-term performance of Modern Movement buildings with low maintenance and the success of comfort concepts in local climatic conditions.