The Rehabilitation Process of an Emblematic Historic Building of Iasi County

Abstract

In the last decades, the modern society exhibited an increasing interest towards the necessity of preserving the national identity also through its built cultural heritage. The numerous historic buildings from Iasi County, most of them being badly affected by the environmental conditions and the improper maintenance, drawn the attention of the competent authorities upon their major responsibility to undertake wide restoration works. One of the emblematic architecture monument of Iasi is a central palace which is a valuable historic landmark for the local cultural heritage of the city. The sumptuous palace is placed in the historic core of Iasi, in the Union Square, and during its lifetime, it served different purposes, such as hotel, bank and political party office. Unfortunately, the communism period dramatically changed its destiny. The upstairs rooms of the three-storey palace have been transformed into social apartments. Nowadays, only the ground floor hosts an art gallery. At the moment, the palace is severely damaged, being classified into the first seismic risk category. The town hall, the actual owner of the palace, has initiated an important rehabilitation and consolidation process of it, partly with European funds. The paper focuses on the main rehabilitation and consolidation proposed solutions. It also presents the conclusions drawn by the team of experts and describes the necessary intervention measures for the structural performance improvement.