For many centuries throughout the history of architecture the requirement for supervising and caring for monumental assets in the face of actions of destruction or “simple” alteration has been found. Ancient civilizations always proposed guidelines for the maintenance and conservation of their more important architectures and milestones of the past.
Following a timid start in the late 18th century the discipline of architectural conservation/restoration found its first “official” spokespeople in the 19th century, in the pioneers who stood out in various countries such as France, England and Italy. Despite the fact that their voices were barely heard initially and lacked the dissemination later afforded by other tools they had a great influence in the development of theory. The Conservation Charters are without doubt one of the better-known measures characterizing the methodological proposals on an international scale. ... MORE >>
In order to understand the current situation of conservation, the criteria guiding it and the role of professionals in the field, the past evolution of this discipline should be analysed. There are numerous studies on this topic, which is essential to
ensuring responsible scientific conservation that is in keeping above all with the demands and culture of our time. Although the conservation of artworks and architecture has been present from Antiquity to the present, two very distinct stages can
be identified throughout history. In an initial pre-scientific period (covering from early historic civilizations to the 18th century) the conservation of monuments, paintings and sculptures was decidedly artisanal and empirical,
mostly aimed at repairing and preventing damage and deterioration, reconstructing lost elements or modifying them to suit taste, ideology or any other arguments (economic, political…). Methods were closely guarded in artists’ workshops as in professional
terms there was no difference between the practices of artistic creation and conservation. ... MORE >>
One of the first conservators to stand out was the Italian architect Leon Battista Alberti in the 15th century. Built on the site of a small church of Dominican monks (13th-14th c.), the Basilica di Santa Maria Novella, in Florence, had an unfinished
façade until a wealthy Florentine merchant, Giovanni Rucellai, provided funding for the work and commissioned his favourite architect. Leon Battista Alberti was thus put in charge of completing this delicate unfinished structure, strictly respecting
the geometric proportions and producing an elegant and harmonious composition of serpentine and Carrara marble. This academic feat attached value to pre-existing elements, made full use of the existing geometry and was guided by the composition of
the finishes. Alberti “simply” completed the façade with a classical order based on proportion. In order to provide unity to the whole and add harmony “the façade was completed with a basic order based on proportion. He used stone intarsias in order
to unify the whole, creating harmony between the original Gothic elements and the new ones while paying homage to the Tuscan constructive tradition”. ... MORE >>
Conservation in style and aesthetic unity
Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (1814-1879) was a French architect, conservation expert and architectural theorist whose role is mostly associated with the neo-Medieval movement, a cultural trend which was born in Europe in the early decades of the 19th century and prompted among other things a revival of Romanesque and Gothic architecture. As a friend of the first Inspector General of Historical Monuments of France, Ludovic Vitet, and his successor Prosper Mérimée, from a very young age Viollet-le-Duc took part in the debate on conservation of national monuments, mostly dating from the Middle Ages, which had suffered the damages and ravages of the French Revolution. He was responsible for shaping the conservation theory, in style, which dominated the international stage for most of the 19th century and the first third of the 20th century. His theories are based on the idea that the value of a monument rests upon its forms and styles, which conservation must strive to recover. This became possible thanks to the history of architecture, classification of buildings by school and period, together with their analogical-comparative study, ideas promoted by Viollet-le-Duc and his followers. The underlying belief is that contemporary architecture can improve and perfect a building and the work of the original architect, given its access to more information and more in-depth and widespread knowledge of the period. ... MORE >>
There are several documents, born from congresses and gatherings of international experts, which function as guidelines established to unify and structure potential criteria for the conservation, restoration or management of a given cultural asset.
Many of these were edited under the name of the cities where the stakeholders in the field of conservation and restoration met. These meetings cemented the aim of reaching a consensus for the recommendations established for the intervention or management of heritage answering to methodological and operational issues. All these documents have one thing in common: they emphasize the different values linked to heritage in its most varied facets, both tangible and intangible. Depending on the case, these protocols defend their cultural, artistic, historical, aesthetic, functional, economic and educational values in terms of authenticity, antiquity and sustainability, which can be linked to the concept of “cultural assets”. ... MORE >>