The evaluation of actions aimed at enhancing the cultural heritage: the case study of the Colosseum roofing

Several authors over the past few decades addressed the topic of the evaluation of interventions on real estate assets belonging to the cultural heritage. Unlike other real estate assets, the cultural ones cannot be considered only according to monetary use values but also taking into account non-use and existence values. When the evaluation’s aim is the selection of a project or a management model to be applied to real estate assets, the multicriteria analysis techniques are, among all the appraisal techniques provided by the evaluative field, particularly suited to the resolution of complex decision making issues. In this context, one of the crucial steps is the definition of criteria, namely of relevant aspects, for the appraisal. These criteria must be selected according to the evaluation’s objectives and to the recognised cultural and architectural values of the asset. This paper presents the application of the pairwise comparison technique -based on the multicriteria methodology of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) introduced by Saaty - and aimed at selecting and weighting the criteria to evaluate the interventions on cultural and architectural assets. The case study is the Emperor Flavio Amphitheatre (Colosseum), one of the most representative cultural heritage sites in Italy; we imagined the construction of a roof on the Colosseum (based on the model of the original roman awning – the so called velarium) and a panel of experts was involved. The pairwise comparison technique has been applied to select the relevant criteria for the evaluation of different projects (or solutions); the purpose was to identify the relevant aspects which must be considered when evaluating the possible interventions on real estate belonging to the cultural heritage