Classification of the deterioration of stone facades in Cuban colonial buildings

The historic stone buildings in Cuba are under environmental factors that affect their integrity and cultural heritage values. In spite of the practices of conservation and restoration, may appear new signs of alteration and/or similar to the previous ones that existed before the refurbishment. The objective of the present work involved a proposal of classification of the alteration and deterioration of stone in facades and walls of buildings with given cultural values, taking into account the worldwide terminology widely used. It assumed researchers' positions of recognized authority in the topic, setting up the authors' points of view, adapted to the specific conditions of the site, Old Havana, declared World Heritage by UNESCO. It was used the integrated multi-modal fact-finding method, a combination of qualitative and quantitative focuses, that allowed elucidating the relation with the factors of deterioration in different environmental scales and as result, an adaptable terminology to the Cuban context.