ABSTRACT
As part of the CHANGES-project, a research project within the European Joint Programming Initiative on Cultural Heritage, maintenance practices are studied in Belgium for the urban region of Mechelen based on the study of seven cases. The main goal of the research, which is performed in collaboration with Monumentenwacht Flanders, is to identify maintenance practices and to understand the types of interventions that are executed. For all the seven selected cases discussed in this paper, the owner is a member of Monumentenwacht Flanders. Maintenance practices were detected based on social research methods, a technical analysis of the performed interventions, and a statistical analysis of the inspection reports of Monumentenwacht. This mixed method analysis revealed that owners take the severity of damages that are detected by Monumentenwacht into account when they decide on maintenance actions, but that their actions are also influenced by practical considerations.
