Building problems in architectonic heritage and geotourism: is there a connection?

Architectonic heritage buildings attract millions of tourists for many reasons: their beauty, history, style, art, location, and so on. Presently, this list is being supplemented by the touristic exploration of the construction material, with particular emphasis on the natural stones. This material is the aim of urban geotourism because it can give precious information about its age, origin, paleo-environment, as well as its provenience, way of exploitation, transport, treatment and finally degradation by weathering, among others. Therefore, the study of the construction stones of heritage buildings constitutes a complement to the “classical” cultural items which are shown and presented during a visit. A particular segment in geotouristic activities may be the presentation of building problems to the visitors. There are many examples in this field, like moisture or cracks in the walls, unusual solutions in construction, disintegration of stones, and so on. These problems can have various causes: the capillary rise of groundwater in a wall, the lack of construction material, the heterogeneous composition of the substrate, the seismic activity, the weathering of material, to name but a few. For a visitor interested in science and technology, the knowledge of the problems, their origin and their solution (or, at least, the attempt of their solution) may be an unforgettable experience. The purpose of the work is to open a new point of view to architectonic heritage and its building problems, which can be used and explained in touristic activities. For this, mainly qualitative non-interventionist and participatory methodologies are applied. As a result, there will be the situation that the damage in one part leads to a profit in the other. This ambiguity may be resolved by considering that better knowledge about the state of the heritage building, which is made accessible to a larger public, will contribute to its preservation. So, the main conclusion is that geotourism applied to architectonic heritage and its problems is an important support to its maintenance because of the dissemination of the knowledge of what may happen with the construction material. Likewise, the knowledge acquired during a geotouristic visit may help to avoid similar problems in other buildings.