The second edition of the publication “The doors in the traditional architecture of the Boka Kotorska and their conservation”

The second edition of the publication “The doors in the traditional architecture of the Boka Kotorska and their conservation” has been released. The publication is the result of cooperation between EXPEDITIO and the Svenska byggnadsvårdsföreningen – the Swedish Association for Building Preservation following the restoration volunteer camps carried out in Perast.

Traditional doors have been chosen as the topic because apart from the practical tasks they perform as secondary elements of traditional buildings, they are an important aspect of the multiple layered heritage of an area. In Boka Kotorska, as in many other parts of Montenegro, numerous traditional doors have been preserved. However, they are often neglected during the maintenance or reconstruction of houses. Very often, the traditional wooden doors are inadequately conserved or simply replaced with new wooden, metal or plastic ones.

By focusing on traditional doors and preparing this publication, we wanted to draw attention to the values of traditional doors and their importance for preserving exceptionally valuable and complex heritage of the Boka Kotorska. Furthermore, we want to point out the necessity of preserving the traditional doors, both through restoring and maintaining old doors and constructing the new ones by using traditional techniques and traditional materials.

After an introductory part, which describes experiences from the volunteer restoration camps, the publication gives basic information about traditional doors in the architecture of Boka Kotrska, the principles of restoration and guidelines for their maintenance and conservation. The publication is intended as a guidebook not only to craftsmen but also to all people who have traditional doors on their houses, focusing on values of doors and methods of their preservation.

The publication has been prepared by EXPEDITIO and participants of the third volunteer restoration camp on the Visković Palace. The co-authors of the publication were Jasminka Grgurević, a conservation painter, and Ilija Lalošević, a conservation architect, while an expert consultant was Calle von Essen from the Swedish Association for Building Preservation. The funds for the first edition of the publication were provided by Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA).

We hope that the publication will contribute, at least to a certain extent, to preserving the traditional doors in the Boka Kotorska and encourage possible future research of this and other topics related to traditional techniques and crafts.

The second edition of the publication in 2016 was issued in the framework of the project “Traditional materials and building techniques in Boka Kotorska” funded by the Headley Trust.

The publication can be viewed at https://issuu.com/expeditiokotor