The coating as a strategy of economic reactivation: The case of the historic center of Cuenca

Abstract

The Historic Center of Cuenca is relevant for being the segment that originated the current city of Cuenca and, as a scenario that has been periodically coupled to the demanded economic activities; in recent years, the intervention carried out in several buildings has been executed with the purpose of rescuing the brick as a representative material of the city. As evidence, the present work registers 7 examples that, until the year 2022, have resorted to the elimination of the facade masonry cladding in order to leave brick as a visible material; based on this, 3 cases are prioritized and studied from implantation, context, architectural structure and the result of the intervention. The comparative analysis allows the identification of general characteristics and, subsequently, the hierarchy and quantification considering the state of the property, materiality, contextual influence and use; in a complementary way, the regulations and guidelines of current intervention are combined to design 3 types of protocols; 1) management, 2) technical execution and 3) control and maintenance, capable of rescuing the architectural identity of the city through the potentiation of brick. The results show that the interventions carried out are appropriate in the contemporary context, since they have generated a direct link with economic activities and aesthetically contribute to the urban image by adding values. In turn, the multi-parameter evaluation applied ratifies the previous results from the three case studies (95/100 case 1, 99/100 case 2 and 83/100 case 3). It is concluded that the interventions carried out are an alternative to enhance the economic use of the buildings in the CHC and could be repeated in others as a practice of economic reactivation, without ignoring that it may be subject to technical difficulties for the conservation of the brick.