The basilica of San Marco: gold and concrete. Ferdinando Forlati and the dialectic between surface and support in the basilica of San Marco’s conservation building site in Venice

As proto of the Venetian Procuratoria of Saint Mark, Fentinando Forlati, at the pinnacle of his career, outlines the fundamentals traits of his own ope­rative and scientific heritage applying his method in the testing ground of the com­plex conservation building site of the basilica ( 1948-1971 ). lf directly compared, the official report of the assignment and the unpublished documents from the archive, even if sporadically contradictory, show the method features that guided the operative choices of the former Superintendent.They show his constant confrontation with the conservation criteria, a discipline beavily brought into question by the mechanisms of the Post-war reconstruction of those years. The basilica conservation building site represents then an opportunity for supporting the potential of the reinforced concrete and cement, which Forlati declared as most appropriate for the conservation of the existing heritage, becoming fundamental topics in the management of the operative practice supported by the proto of the fabbriceria. The various method orientations can be applied from the conservative attention paid to the «precious and venerable aspect» of the mosaic apparatus and decorative surfaces (Forlati, 1956) to the recon­struction of the whole masonry support elements; from the vertical structures Consolidation carried out by pressure cement injections to the insertion of several reinfor­ced concrete beams and curbs in historical masonry; from the massive substitution of the domes' wooden elements, to all those operations providing the adaptation of the monument to the "moden" installation and liturgical requirements. The outcomes of the research allowed to record an "intervention catalogue", whose main purpose is to be functional as a technical-operative tool for the cooperation with diagnostics towards the future conservation path of the monument. The simble interventions realized between 1948 and 1971 considerably modified the matter of the Saint Mark basilica structures, even if concealed by the apparent unaltered de­corative surface that made the Golden Basilica among the most known monuments of the world. «Those are the ongoing conservations, whose elegance is neglected by the public which is always staring to those etenal armors, without even being able to perceive, when finally gone, that something new was done» (Forlati, 1952).