Technological experimentation and Heritage: the preservation of installations.[Villa Hügel, Essen]

Only recently the discipline of architectonic heritage preservation has acquired the chapter of so-called “technological installations”. They also represent the main contribution given by the industrial revolution, since J. Watt onwards, to the building sector while introducing dynamic components and specific designing, building and assembling rules. Such solutions have followed up the historical development of architecture and technology throughout the 18th-20th century, so improving related performance levels. That has also changed their use habits – giving birth to the concept of “comfort”- as well as night-time functioning thanks to the artificial lighting of buildings and manufactured articles. There is a limited number of architectonic heritage works which are preserved because of their technologically-innovative features: Villa Hügel (1873), Essen is among those monuments whose installation features clearly prevail on its architecture.