1.2 NOTES ON THE THEORY OF CONSERVATION
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.
The second moment or scientific period (19th and 20th c.) started with the contemporary era and coincided with the modern interpretation of heritage and the need to conserve it to transmit it to future generations. A series of different intervention theories initially based on solid historic awareness and the knowledge of the different values of the monument, and then architectural heritage, make up the core nucleus of the discipline. In parallel, technological advances and the development of an increasing professional awareness brought about studies and research on the most suitable methods for guaranteeing the knowledge and survival of historic architecture.