Preface

This booklet describes a system of evaluating buildings and urban structures from a preservational point of view.

In 1987 the first step was taken in developing a simple and efficient method for making inventories in Denmark. During 2 years all buildings built before 1940 in 6 municipalities of different size and degree of urbanization were described, photographed and evaluated according to printed forms, and a new system of describing and evaluating groups of buildings as part of a geographic and urban structure was developed after a number of experiments.

Since 1990 the system, called SAVE (Survey of Architectural Values in the Environment), has been finished and has proved its usefulness as the methodical foundation of 40 municipal atlases, each covering one municipality. In positive figures this has resulted in a register consisting of c. 210.000 buildings and c. 1250 developed structures. An average Danish municipality consists of 5-6000 buildings built before 1940, and with a staff of 4-6 people the whole process will normally take 9 months.

The decades before and after 1900 witnessed deep changes in society and the way of building. Outside the old town centres new land was taken in for town-developing purposes and new dwelling areas were established.
Odensegade 22 in Copenhagen is situated in an area, Østerbro, characterized by big dwellings for the bourgeoisie, but all the same the site has been rather extensively utilized, the architect having used the "cul-de-sac" system which gives a maximum of facade turning to the street.
Photo: Sten Lange.

The system has been used on localities in other countries, such as Ireland (Waterford), Poland (Krzeszów) and Germany (Stralsund) and has proved applicable under these conditions. Also the UNESCO World Heritage list of monuments is a field where the SAVE-system could be used as a practical way of evaluation.

In the international version of SAVE (InterSAVE) measures have been taken to liberate the system from Danish conditions such as the presence of a Building and Dwelling Register or standardized city maps. The ambition is that the system is applicable in Timbuktu as well as in Toronto.

This is obtained by distinguishing between core methods, which are fixed, and the actual procedures which can be modified to satisfy site specific conditions.

In Denmark all data are filed on a database in The State Documentation Centre, which is part of the inter-European network of documentation centres organised by The Council of Europe. The Centre is the organ where information about InterSAVE can be obtained.