Abstract
Ruins are a statement on the building materials used and the construction method employed. Casa Ippolito, now in ruins, is typical of 17th-century Maltese aristocratic country residences. It represents an illustration of secondary or anthropogenic geodiversity. This paper scrutinises these ruins as a primary source in reconstructing the building’s architecture. The methodology involved on-site geographical surveying, including visual inspection and non-invasive tests, a geological survey of the local lithostratigraphy, and examination of notarial deeds and secondary sources to support findings about the building’s history as read from its ruins. An unmanned aerial vehicle was used to digitally record the parlous state of the architectural structure and karsten tubes were used to quantify the surface porosity of the limestone. The results are expressed from four perspectives. The anatomy of Casa Ippolito, as revealed in its ruins, provides a cross-section of its building history and shows two distinct phases in its construction. The tissue of Casa Ippolito—the building elements and materials—speaks of the knowledge of raw materials and their properties among the builders who worked on both phases. The architectural history of Casa Ippolito reveals how it supported its inhabitants’ wellbeing in terms of shelter, water and food. Finally, the ruins in their present state bring to the fore the site’s potential for cultural tourism. This case study aims to show that such ruins are not just geocultural remains of historical built fabric. They are open wounds in the built structure; they underpin the anatomy of the building and support insights into its former dynamics. Ruins offer an essay in material culture and building physics. Architectural ruins of masonry structures are anthropogenic discourse rendered in stone which facilitate not only the reconstruction of spaces but also places for human users; they are a statement on the wellbeing of humanity throughout history.
Highlights
Built heritage, rendered in stone, is an anthropogenic, geocultural statement of humanity
This is followed by a discussion on architectural ruins as a cultural tourism product, reflecting the priorities and trends of the tourism market in Malta, a destination which has, since the turn of the millennium, been seeking
The anatomy of the building A public deed dated 1893, when the residence was still fit for habitation, states that the house and surrounding lands had a superficial area of 36 tumoli, 4 mondelli and 2 misure: equivalent to just over 41,000 m 2
Summary
Built heritage, rendered in stone, is an anthropogenic, geocultural statement of humanity. It represents a lithological, industrial, archaeological and historical testimony to sustainable architectural science. The present article deals with the geocultural aspects of stone buildings, that is, those that are primarily composed of geological materials drawn directly from nature, such as dimension. The architectural evolution of Malta is based on the use of local limestone. The lithostratigraphic formation outcrops have been exploited for construction and in the manufacture of internal household features such as stone shelves and stoves [1]. Long before geology was recognised as an academic discipline, the builders of Malta held sufficient knowledge of the properties of the local limestone to distinguish between the various geological strata.
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