Italian standardisation activity in the field of diagnosis and restoration of ancient timber structures

The standardisation activity in the field of cultural heritage started in Italy in 1996, following an agreement between the Ministry of Culture and the Italian Standardisation body (UNI) through the constitution of the Technical Committee UNI / NORMAL (Cultural Heritage). The activities of the WG 20 (Wood and wooden materials) began in 1999 and gave the rise to the standardisation actions on wooden artefacts belonging to the cultural heritage. Even if timber structures are only a part in the huge world of wooden objects coming from the past, nevertheless the importance of many structures, the safety needs of many public historic buildings and many bad restoration examples forced the WG 20 to start working on different standard projects on the ancient timber structures. The first two standards published embrace the problems of the diagnosis through visual on-site inspections and of the intervention criteria on ancient timber structures to be restored. The aim of the paper is the description of the two mentioned standards.