Current Rehabilitation Works of a Church from Romania

Churches are important symbols of spiritual expression and community involvement, helping to define the spatial and cultural identity of a nation. They are recognized and appreciated as social and physical symbols of spirituality. Churches physically preserve legacies of important historical events in the life of the community, both directly and indirectly through their successive constructive changes that indicate the influence of social and economic trends. Their evolution in the historical, architectural and symbolic sense is subjected to natural processes (such as alteration and physical degradation of the building), as well as social, economic and technological changes or the availability of economic resources for their maintenance in a given time interval. However, certain churches may present challenges for communities due to their preservation requirements, placing a considerable economic burden on them. The paper aim is to present the effects of poor maintenance and possible rehabilitation solution for an old masonry building. The case study presented in this article refers to a church from Atid, Harghita County, Romania, where several finishes were redone in order to overcome some of the problems as is the case of water infiltration.