From the Intervention of a Vernacular Heritage Structure in Oña – Ecuador, to the Improvement of the Cultural Landscape

The San Francisco de Oña neighborhood is in southern Ecuador and is included in the national heritage list. About 20% of the heritage buildings are in an advanced state of deterioration, mostly abandoned and without maintenance. This article shows the intervention in one of these vernacular heritage buildings through a so-called Maintenance Campaign, which is an initiative developed by the University of Cuenca and is based on the recognition of values and the participation of different social and institutional actors through collaborative work, known as “minga” in the Andean world. The research was carried out based on two method-ologies: a) the preventive conservation methodology according to ICOMOS 2003 and b) the participatory methodologies according to RedCIMAS (2015), which allow for active interactions and mutual learning among its actors. The University of Cuenca developed twenty maintenance projects in the San Francisco de Oña neighborhood, although due to the Covid pandemic it was only possible to inter-vene in one building. This case study turned out to be very interesting, because not only was a heritage building rescued utilizing traditional constructive techniques, but also an urban project by the Municipality of Oña was halted, which would have led to the destruction of part of this building by transforming a narrow dirt road into a wide road for heavy traffic. If this project had been carried out, heritage in Oña would have been affected in two ways. First, one of the buildings with the highest heritage value of this neighborhood would have been lost and second, a drastic change would have occurred in the historical cultural landscape of the San Francisco de Oña neighborhood.