June 7, 2024 09:00 Cork
The Liège heritage alderman organized a study day at La Boverie on “First aid for heritage”. Among the many themes covered, crisis management of heritage, for example in the event of flooding, but also in the event of fire.
Disasters and crises follow one another and threaten people’s lives, but also the saving of our heritage, an asset to be protected. For the Royal Institute of Artistic Heritage, the flood crisis highlighted the lack of a national strategy and the lack of rapid assessment procedures and organizational resources. “Following the floods, we set up a crisis committee. We put all the heritage stakeholders together to be able to actually work together in terms of communication, in terms of how to intervene and in terms of fundraising. then also implemented treatment methods and protocols” explains Hilde De Clercq, the general director of the Royal Institute of Artistic Heritage.
In addition to flooding, one of the most significant risks for heritage is destruction by fire during a fire. This is why close cooperation with the police and firefighters is necessary to evacuate the works of art. This is the case, for example, at the cathedral treasury where an emergency evacuation plan has been put in place for people, but also for the ten major works classified as “Treasures of Wallonia”, such as this bust of Saint- Lambert weighing 80 kilos. “There is an evacuation sheet which has been established which the firefighters retrieve as soon as they enter the building. And with this sheet, they see the bust of Saint-Lambert, its weight, its dimension and the two possibilities of evacuation So a rapid evacuation which is the closest via the tower located at Place Saint-Paul and the second possibility via the window located on Rue Bonne Fortune. explains Francis Forir, a volunteer at the Treasury at Saint Paul’s Cathedral.
For the Royal Institute of Artistic Heritage, the preservation of works of art is work that must be done through prevention, but also through training to take the right actions during interventions to save buildings and works of art. the art they contain.
