Technical-technological and materials comparative analysis between italian and spanish medieval shipyard (the case of Venice and Seville)

Abstract

Research on historical dockyards is currently dealt purely from the historical and archaeological point of view, biased to classical examples (Hellenistic neoria and Roman navalia). The projects are mainly concerned with the analysis of material remains of vessels leaving aside the architectural structures where they actually took shape. The shipyards experimented their greater typological progress in the Middle Ages, a period in which architecture developed new construction techniques, such as the Gothic style, originally used for cult buildings, were promptly transferred to military structures, as in the case of arsenals in which it was possible to preserve and create more and larger vessels. These huge monuments, today obsoleted for their original function, are embedded within the fabric of ancient cities with historical harbors and which are involved in recovery and restructuring their urban planning. The research project aims to fulfil a better recording of these structures, from an architectural and engineering point of view, in order to detect the architectonic type, define the traditional construction technics and the employed technologies and identify the used material in relation to the latter; this are indispensable requirements for future recovery interventions of these structures and spaces.