HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
The restoration of Palazzo Ceccopichi, located on the corner between Piazza del Teatro Pompeo and Via dei Baullari, in the heart of the historic center of Rome, has been completed and the result is stunning.
The works, made by Vivenda with the state subsidies of the Superbonus and with the invoice discount mechanism, were carried out in two phases: a structural one with the seismic improvement of the building and an architectural one with the restoration of the facades and their elements.
INTERVENTION DESCRIPTION
The building, formerly Ceccopichi Palace, develops with the two main fronts on Piazza del Teatro di Pompeo and on Via dei Baullari, and is divided into 5 levels above ground, including a mezzanine floor plus a basement and an attic floor. On the remaining two sides, the building is adjacent to the surrounding buildings, with cloisters, swinging arches and shared walls. On the back, there are some projecting bodies supported by steel elements cantilevered from the walls and the lift shaft with a reinforced concrete structure adjacent to the stairwell.
The load-bearing structure is mainly made up of brick masonry, the attics, partly vaulted on the ground floor and in the basement, are mostly wooden with a double frame with master beams and rafters, partly decorated and frescoed. In the restoration project were included seismic improvement interventions, consisting of the insertion of perforated metal chains inside the walls.
The intervention has both the purpose of mending the cracks present in the spine walls and connecting the facade masonry to the internal walls, supporting the overall behavior of the construction and increasing the flexural resistance of the external walls to seismic action. Given the crack pattern inside the building, the pre-consolidation and restoration works of the frescoed and decorated parts were included in the list of works. These were necessary to guarantee the perfect conservation and protection of the asset during the execution of the consolidation interventions. Reinforcement works with minimally invasive techniques of fractured or severely undersized wooden beams were also included, in order to restore the load-bearing capacity of the decks.
In conjunction with the structural interventions, the architectural restoration of the building was carried out, in compliance with the requirements of the Superintendence. It consisted of a first phase of general cleaning of the plastered surfaces and removal of various stratifications, following the revision of the plasters with the use of traditional products based on natural hydraulic lime and without the use of cementitious products.
The string courses, the final cornice and the corner pilasters were treated with traditional techniques such as the removal of crumbling and unsafe sections, reconstruction with wooden templates and restoration of the wall framework. The stone parts in the window frames, on the bases and on the entrance portal were treated with controlled pressure water and sand jet micro-cleaning systems. The restoration concluded with the final painting of the facades, carried out following the stratigraphic investigations which determined their original colouring.