The Village Museum, by its specificity, holds over 80% of organic materials, especially wood, which constantly raises problems of conservation and restoration.
The care for these aspects has been constant since the establishment of the laboratory in 1974. At present, the Heritage Conservation-Restoration Laboratory consists of 21 specialists who carry out restoration and research activities for the purpose of heritage preservation in new premises, equipped with modern laboratories for physical-chemical and biological investigations, developing various complementary analysis techniques, with laboratories for the conservation-care of movable heritage and with laboratories for the restoration of ceramics, tempera and glass painting, metal, textiles and wood. Wood preservation and restoration is complemented by a vacuum-pressure autoclave and a traditional wood kiln.
The research of movable and immovable heritage for conservation and restoration purposes is carried out both through the current activity in the researcher - conservator - restorer relationship and through the development of research projects at national level, in partnership with higher education institutions and national research and development institutes.
The Laboratory specialists carry out extensive restoration and conservation work on all the types of media mentioned, both for the pieces and objects in the Village Museum and for other centers in the country or private collectors.
Heritage conservation is carried out both through treatment methods appropriate to the various types of objects or objectives, and especially through a more sustained preventive conservation activity, through permanent monitoring and "mastery" of the microclimate parameters, as well as through constant checking of the state of conservation of artifacts in heritage repositories or especially in open-air exhibitions, where the microclimate of the temperate zone and the urban location cause additional conservation problems.
The restoration work mainly uses classical methods (integration, consolidation), but also modern methods to prevent and combat deterioration by using new products, modern technology and by studying documentation on new findings in the field. Research is being carried out in the field of physical-chemical and biological investigations with a view to adopting new findings in these fields in restoration work.
The capitalization of the conservation-restoration results in our museum, as well as those of our colleagues in the museum network, is carried out annually through the organization of a conservation-restoration exhibition, the National Conservation-Restoration Conference "Doina Darvaș (CONScience), as well as the publication of a specialist volume, the Restitutio Bulletin (bilingual) containing the proceedings of the previous year's conference.
