One of Poland's largest and most awe-inspiring town halls, it was originally built in the late 13th century and has been renovated again over the centuries. Surprisingly, it survived World War II and now lends an immense amount of character to the town square, serves a mostly decorative role - with a huge tower and an astronomical clock. The city museum inside is worth a quick peek. It also worths to have a meal and a cold drink at one of the city's best beer halls, conveniently located in the Town Hall basement. (source: google+)
The Wroclaw market square Rynek
A thousand-year history: It is true that once you have been to Wroclaw, you want to come back again. To know the city, appreciate its magic and find personal favourite sights, streets, buildings and squares, one has to return here!
Wroclaw, here we are again!!! The city looks even more beautiful to me compared to it was two years ago. It fascinated me on my second return visit. Much can be said this time, much can be felt when walking around the town market square: things seem to be familiar but on another level of magic. Two years ago, I have felt a beautiful Wroclaw with colours and dwarfs. This time, everything seemed to be on place to fulfill my expectation of seeing the city's beauty again. Anyway, I will probably write about that more later. For this entry, my focus is on the reason that I visited again Wroclaw: the SAHC conference 2012. As an alumni of the SAHC Masters, I was excited to see again some of my Professors (Prof. Lourenco, Prof. Ramos, Prof. Ddacky, Prof. Kabele, Mr. Biggs, some Professors from the Belgian universities that I have met during the CH.ESS summer school this July), colleagues and friends after my graduation two years ago. Moreover, the venue of the conference was the Centennial Hall Complex, a very interesting historic building that I have also visited before. In addition, I made contribution to the Erasmus Mundus Alumni magazine by reporting about the conference. Below is my short report, which will be published soon on the Erasmus Mundus Alumni website (http://www.em-a.eu):
8th International Conference on Structural Analysis of Historical Constructions (SAHC 2012)
The SAHC conference is known as one of the most prestigious events in the field of preservation of historic constructions. After Barcelona (1995, 1998), Guimarães (2001), Padova (2004), New Delhi (2006), Bath (2008) and Shanghai (2010), the eighth SAHC conference took place from 15th to 17th October 2012 in Wroclaw, Poland. In line with the theme of the conference, the meeting place was the Centennial Hall Complex, which is listed on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 2006 and one of the best known cultural heritage buildings in Wroclaw.
More than 500 scientists and experts, academics and practitioners, engineers and architects, designers and contractors, conservators and archaeologists as well as students gathered during the three-day conference to discuss the spectrum of ongoing research, the latest trends, methods and their applications in the broadly understood conservation of monuments. The wide range of more than 50 countries represented at the conference proves the worldwide appreciation of the historic building preservation.
During the conference, a number of parallel thematic sessions of paper presentations were held and constituted a central part of the programme. These sessions were started with selected keynote lectures and followed by interactive discussion rounds on current topics. In total, more than 300 papers were presented. The main focuses of the conference were, for example, conservation of different types of building materials, structural analysis and safety assessment, innovative and traditional materials/techniques, seismic behavior and retrofitting, rehabilitation of bridges, analytical and numerical approaches as well as experimental analysis. In addition, two sessions of RILEM workshop were carried out. With its variety of rooms, the congress center, as part of the Centennial Hall Complex, offered an optimum venue for all the activities including discussions and social networking during intermediate breaks and presentation of services and products from the sponsors and related associations.
Beside the scientific sessions during the days, the evening programme also offered many attractions to the participants. On the first day, a festive dinner was given at the beautiful historic Town Hall of Wroclaw - a suitable ambience for a comfortable get-together. The visit to the Bente Kahan Concert at the White Stork Synagogue - the Wroclaw centre for Jewish culture and education, on the following evening was a highlight of the conference’s cultural programme. It was a unique intercultural dialogue for all participants. On the last evening, after a gala seafood dinner, the special Wroclaw Fountain event lured all participants with a spectacular show of lightings and colours.
The SAHC conference 2012 ended as a success in the scientific quality and well-prepared organization, as well as an enriching personal experience for the participants in the monumental Centennial Hall of the nice city of Wroclaw. More information about the SAHC conference 2012 can be found at: http://www.sahc2012.org. The ninth SAHC conference 2014 will take place in Mexico City.
Wroclaw, 15-18.10.2012
Update: My revised report about the SAHC 2012 has been published on 26.10.2012 on the Erasmus Mundus Alumni (EMA) website: EMA Members Report - 8th SAHC 2012
Wroclaw - Beautiful city with colours and dwarfs
No comments:
Post a Comment