Economics of Planned Conservation

Planned conservation is an innovative procedure, thought as a step from restoration as event, to preservation as long-term process. Proposed paper therefore introduces planned conservation of built cultural heritage, in its relationships with integrated conservation and sustainability issues, as well as with the already established idea of preventive conservation in museums, libraries, archives. Planned conservation is something more than maintenance and monitoring: it is a rather complex strategy, merging a large scale reduction of risks and a careful organisation of daily activities in properties, with a strong demand of innovation in building practices. Implementing planned conservation, therefore, is something more effective than implementing maintenance: it means setting a totally new scenario, posing questions about strategies and links between preservation activities and local development processes. The attempt is to go beyond the basic, approvable statement that Heritage counts because of its impact on economy of tourism. A research program in Politecnico di Milano focuses on external benefits of preservation processes. If human capital becomes an interesting parameter to evaluate an economy, preservation counts because of its impact on players’ capability to doubt, to learn, to innovate: in other words, value assessment shifts from Heritage as a given asset, to preservation processes as opportunities to increase intellectual capital. The ultimate thesis is that “planned conservation” model yields more of external benefits, and makes their management easier than in traditional “restoration-promotion” model.