Monumument Presrvation in Central Europe

Monument Preservation in Central Europe

Kzmr Kovcs

Copyright 1999 Kzmr Kovcs

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Contents

Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................1The Historical Settlement Opposed to the Contemporary Town ............................................................................4Evolution of the Idea of Historical Monument .......................................................................................................8

I.Alois Riegl........................................................................................................................................................8II.Renaissance in Italy.........................................................................................................................................9III.France and England .......................................................................................................................................9IV.Industrial Revolution ...................................................................................................................................10V.CIAM and the World Wars...........................................................................................................................11VI.Romania within the European Context ........................................................................................................11VII.Contemporary Situation .............................................................................................................................12VIII.Conclusions...............................................................................................................................................13

Criteria for the Evaluation of Historical Monuments ...........................................................................................14I.The Value attributed to Historical Monuments ..............................................................................................14

1.Values Representations and Functions ......................................................................................................142.The Documentary function ........................................................................................................................153.The Aesthetic function...............................................................................................................................154.The Function of Ancientness .....................................................................................................................165.The Identity Function.................................................................................................................................16

II.Minefields .....................................................................................................................................................161.The Authenticity ........................................................................................................................................162.Restoration.................................................................................................................................................173.Significance ...............................................................................................................................................174.Technology ................................................................................................................................................18

III.Attempts to Quantify ...................................................................................................................................181.Criteria for the evaluation ..........................................................................................................................182. Education ..................................................................................................................................................193.Administration ...........................................................................................................................................19

IV.Conclusions: The Science of Demolishing..................................................................................................19Plenik's Art..........................................................................................................................................................21

Plenik in Vienna..............................................................................................................................................22Masaryk at the Castle........................................................................................................................................22Home ................................................................................................................................................................23Forms ................................................................................................................................................................24Continuous Architecture ...................................................................................................................................24

1 Introduction

Introduction

Taking a closer look to the experience of monument preservation in countries of Central Europe(Romania, Hungary, Slovenia, The Czech-lands, Slovakia), reveals a fair number of similarities andperhaps even more differences in the details. What occurs with the strength of a revelation, though, isthe much wider importance of the phenomenon as a whole, particularly visible in this part of Europe.Unlike in the West, here still coexist European theory and practice of monument preservationcombined with progressist demolitionism, and traditional, natural attitudes towards the builtenvironment. As one travels Eastward contrasts become sharper. The matter obviously points to whatFranoise Choay calls a heritage syndrome (as sign of the jeopardy threatening our edifyingcompetence), and farther. What we are dealing with is no less than a mutation in our (human) way ofinhabiting the planet. If architecture is considered according to its most comprehensive meaning, asanthropological behaviour meant to produce adequacy between ourselves as cultural beings and ourenvironment, the matter at stake is the survival of architecture. The unprecedented globalization of thetheory and practice of monument protection on the one hand, the overall success of industrial designobjects placed everywhere as buildings on the other, are signs of a schizoid edifying behaviour ofhumankind. In such a reference system, national legislation and traditions in the field of monumentprotection are reduced to the scale of mere elements of a larger scheme. Their interest remains intact,however, because, due to five decades of totalitarianism and incumbent poverty, in countries likeRomania, Slovakia or Hungary there are still urban or rural structures surviving with their ancientkinds of social life, traditions and building techniques, features that in the Western part of Europehave by now almost disappeared.

Moreover, monument preservation seems to be a determinant feature of contemporary culture.The scale of preservationist approach has since long reached the level of urban design not merely asone of the important criteria in decision making, but also as an essential standpoint to be adoptedwhen dealing with matters of future urban development. Hence the need to extend conclusions of anytheoretical research to broader levels of generality within the architectural domain.

Down at the eye level, actual treatment of the built heritage, subsumed to internationallyadopted and observed rules and showing essential similarities related to physical destruction andrepair, proves to be of endless diversity.

One specificity, for instance, of the Romanian scenery is given by the fact that traditionalbuilding techniques still strongly survive in the everyday use. In comparison, going westwards fromthe Transylvanian border, artisans who can still apply traditional technology become scarce - end veryexpensive. At another end of the world (and of the paradigm), Japan offers an interesting example forbeing the only country where professional skills of the craftsmen capable of ritually rebuilding Shintoshrines are listed and protected as national cultural heritage1. What seems in Romania to be theopposite of other countries difficulties, creates in fact a difficulty of opposite direction:Transylvanian masons or carpenters would not admit that their achievements are in any sense inferiorto the similar work of their colleagues who lived a couple of centuries ago! Hence severe damagesdone to monuments from the point of view of their value of ancient-ness (not of their authenticity,though), in spite of the genuine competence of the workers.

If one has to come to any conclusions, one needs to look at the mainstream of the process. Thepressure goes towards fundamental research and abstract speculation.

My whole idea on the matter has changed in the sense of the broadening of the field. Myinterest for specific details lessened, while I became fascinated by what seems to be the key of theproblem: the fact that today any built (or just man made) object can become a historical monumentmerely because the mode of its fabrication becomes obsolete. This is (by now) only partly

1 Choay, Franoise, Sept propositions sur le concept dauthenticit, the Nara Conference on Authenticity, 1994,Romanian translation by Kzmr Kovcs, apte propoziii asupra conceptului de autenticitate, in AlegoriaPatrimoniului, Bucureti, 1998

2 Introduction

determined by the values identified and analysed by Riegl and reformulated (updated) by Choay.The explanation of such phenomenon lies in the failure of post-industrial architecture to fulfil itsinitial founding function. Hence the feeling of irretrievable loss relative to anything that we onceknew how to make and do not know any longer. Our very cultural identity is at stake. My four papersare dealing with the subject in these terms. I trust that, although they do not offer detailed comparisonbetween national legal frameworks in the field, nevertheless the ideas they encompass findapplicability wherever legislators elaborate on the theoretical basis of the rules to be observed intodays patrimonial practice.

The fourth and last of my series of articles written with the purpose of illuminating some - inmy opinion - important features of monument preservation deals with the work of the Slovenearchitect Joe Plenik whose biography, career and achievements, though exceptional, can be seen asa synecdoche of all the major matters of twentieth century patrimonial syndrome. In-between liesthe more general outline of the problem presented from three different points of view:

- the dimensions of contemporary architectural landscape seen through the difficultiesfaced by our historical settlements;

- the consecration of the concept of historical monument as it is world wide acceptedtoday, with references to theory and practice of monument protection in Central Europe;

- the crucial matter of determining a historical monument according to specific criteria.

Paper number one, The Historical Settlement Opposed to the Contemporary Town bringstogether the oeuvre of two contemporary theorists: Franoise Choay and Joseph Rykwert. It does so inorder to sketch the main features of the contemporary crisis in architecture as mirrored in the undoingof our settlements. Historical old towns tend to become isolated tourist gadgets amidst networktowns dominated by motor ways and amorphous, residual non-spaces. The two authors offer in turndifferent yet complementary interpretations and, sometimes, solutions to the problem. My paperattempts to demonstrate not only that we cannot any longer deal with built monuments as singleobjects urban patrimony has been institutionalised for some time by now , but also that theprotection of our historical towns needs, following the marks set by Giovannoni and developed byChoay, to be organically integrated in the general treatment of built environment.

Once the field marked, paper number two deals with the Evolution of the Idea of HistoricalMonument. It was needless and beyond the economy of my intentions to try an exhaustivesurvey of the field. What I intended was to identify the mainstream of the evolution. Prediction is alsonot my purpose, yet it was unavoidable to guess that, the way things are going, at some point therewould be no architectural domain left outside the patrimonial area. Such idea reveals a parallelprocess: while architecture tends to be perceived as monument, non-architectural spaces tend to beregarded as architecture. Broadbent has of course proved that every building carries meanings.Semantic load of the built environment only increases in time. This is yet another argument for tryingto re-approach patrimonial matters from the architectural point of view.

Still, the two fields are and should remain distinct. Paper number three makes a survey ofthe matters concerning Criteria for the Evaluation of Historical Monuments. Evaluation andidentification, also. After discussing the contributions of Riegl, Giovannoni and Choay to researchingthe values with which historical monuments have been invested in time, I am dealing with theuncertainties of the subject. Then I am discussing a pragmatic attempt to quantify the evaluationprocess and finally the matters of specific education and decision making. My conclusions regard afew aspects of ancient buildings that seem to be forgotten by today. Their absence in our architecturalpractice contributes to the widening and deepening of the gap existing today between architecture andarchitectural monuments on the one hand, historical towns and contemporary network settlements onthe other.

In this way paper number four is introduced. Plenik's Art is interpreted in such way as todemonstrate that architectural practice does not contradict monument preservation and, vice-versa,

3 Introduction

monument preservation can be dealt with architecturally. In other words, built monuments can escapethe fate of becoming museum objects without being inauthentic while new buildings can avoidanonymity without being either revivalist or technotopic. Plenik's art lies, in my opinion, in hisalways finding the right measure between these sensitive requirements. His (Central European) figureis the most appropriate to prove that architecture is not dead, moreover it has resources to survive nomatter how much technology or spirituality changes. Plenik's lesson, precisely, is that mankind isstill capable to inhabit poetically. In an architectural world, instead of playing the role ofcuriosities, historical monuments can respond contemporary functions and thus re-integrate builtenvironment. This is of course, beyond its regional importance, a universal matter.

Looking at Plenik's work, moreover, takes us back, rather unexpectedly, to my initial idea tounderstand monumentification through the study of twentieth century, modernist buildingheritage. As it turned out, Plenik is relevant to this question not so much as a modern although hewas one in his very personal way but as a dissident from the doctrines of the CIAM. Plenik'soeuvre encompasses the whole transition from Viennese secession he has been a Wagner pupil , tothe early post war developments of the fifties. His uniqueness lies largely in his capability to avoid thedead ends of both functionalism. This is also the reason why today Plenik is enjoying world widefame while functionalist architects of his epoch sink into oblivion, with the exception of a few veryhigh profiles. Ironically enough, the oeuvres of the latter share with Plenik's the condition of listedhistorical monuments. This fact in itself is a proof of the system error in the radicalism of the CIAMproject. It also enables us to notice a difference of status: while functionalist monuments belong to aclosed chapter of architectural history, Plenik's architecture lives a new life open to endlessinterpretations.

All papers but the first are shortened versions of the initial ones; it seemed more appropriate todo so in order to match the extent of the first one (limited initially by its being presented at a seminar)and the economy of a four-in-one text. I also hope that in this way the main line of the argument ismore evident.

4 The Historical Settlement Opposed to the Contemporary Town

The Historical Settlement Opposed to the Contemporary Town

In our days it is self understood to protect our historical monuments. Moreover, we createprotected urban zones that can at times comprise whole settlements. These are historical patrimonyand benefit as such of special attention and treatment. We are in fact dealing with a comprehensivecultural behaviour the complexity of which on both theoretical and practical fields competes with thatof the built patrimony itself.

Why are we doing all this? Where did this process, felt as self understood, begin and how didit spread world wide? What are those values judged to be irreplaceable whose loss would be sounbearable that, in order to preserve them, we must invest our historical settlements with a new status,alien to their origins? These are only a few of those questions the raising of, and the attempt to answerto which belong organically to the field of monument preservation. It is with the intention of onepossible approach that I shall sketchily outline the work of two contemporary researchers in relationto this matter.

Franoise Choay has come to architectural theory from historical and philosophical studies andby today she is one of the specialists credited with international authority in the field. As, true to herphilosophical background, she attempts to encompass the whole of the domain, her surveys followtwo major lines. Although apparently distinct, in fact the theory of urban forms and the theory ofhistorical monuments are related to each other in many respects. For Choay it is obvious that thesetwo groups of phenomena and their respective questioning bring the closest to understanding the crisisthat is so determining for the architecture of our century.

Joseph Rykwert is a practising architect and professor of architecture at an Americanuniversity. In addition he is one of the most original and most interesting architectural theorists of ourtime. An immense humanistic culture is corroborated in his surveys with the experience ofarchitectural practice. In the know of the fundamental, almost terminal lacks underminingcontemporary architecture, he in his turn attempts to raise questions that can create an openingtowards founding the settlements of the next millennium in an anthropologically adequate way.

Their resemblance and the differences separating them can equally advocate for the associationof these two authors. Both of them structure their analysis on historical grounds and both showsparkling erudition while raising their hypotheses. Their respective conclusions are introduced bysimilarly daring and surprising speculations and their respective systems are supported by equallyprofound humanism. Finally, but from the point of view of our topic here most of all, one and theother search for solutions to respond cultural and implicitly architectural challenges produced bythis century in the study of the evolution of our historical and contemporary settlements.

On the other hand, Choay is worthy heir of French rationalism, while his eclectic culture makesRykwert appeal more to intuitive methods. While one of them inserts her demonstration within aframework leading straightforward to the no matter how nonconformist conclusion, the otherpresents a picture made of diverse colourful fragments. As long as the French scientist reaches herfinal, usually strongly subversive result through ice cold and crystal clear logic, the Polish-British-American professor builds up his discourse of classical solidity by composing playful figures inunexpected ways.

Starting from all these I shall outline their distinct yet complementary works, belonging in factto the same universe of knowledge, in relation to the matter of the preservation of historicalsettlements.

Rykwert deals with the problems of contemporary town in numerous articles. In Fr die Stadt Argumente fr ihre Zukunft2 he approaches the question through Manhattan and those Europeancities that undergo changes following this pattern. We learn that initially there was a European likelayout imagined to occupy the yet hardly built half-island (Joseph Manguin, 1800). It was planned to

2 in Schabert, Tilo (editor), Die Welt der Stadt, Piper, Mnchen Zrich 1991


shelter about half million inhabitants and was to have squares, gardens and sea shore promenades.This project was dropped seven years later by a board who had foreseen the enormous increasing ofthe population in favour of the chessboard layout known today. Much later there have been people tojest by comparing the New York skyline with the silhouette of certain mediaeval towns of Tuscany. Itis through the comparative (historical) survey of the American technological prodigy that Rykwertsearches for the factors influencing the functionalist transformation of ancient European cities(manhattanization).

The crisis of contemporary town is the overall background and basis for Rykwerts criticism.The identified losses determine the essence the traditional town, like in the article entitled Bilan de laCit3. It is the interrelation of public and private functions and of all the intermediate forms thatreveals the existence of a metropolis. In the absence of such variety the modern city cannot be. Whatwe build today does not make possible the direct contact that is a pre-condition to multi-layeredexperience. The town itself lacks the coherence in the layout that would enable us to apprehend it asurban space. As for what we think to be rational in the professional discourse, it changes a greatdeal about every ten years. The whole prattle around the rehabilitation of city centres makes sense ifit is preceded by a thorough survey of what is a town ... 4

The Idea of a Town5 is the title of the encompassing work in which Rykwert attempts suchthorough survey. Although the intention declared in the sub-title is to achieve an anthropology of theancient town, the book, through its inter-disciplinary method and wide horizon of research addressesto anyone concerned with the origins, evolution and destiny of surviving ancient towns. And of coursewith their preservation.

Beginning with founding rites that determine also the physical shape of a town, dealing with theproblem of the site, the symbolism of the boundary, the gate and its guards, Rykwert stays mostly bythe case of Rome. The eternal City is in many respects exemplary. However, the fifth chapter isdedicated to parallels. The researching of the mandala, the practices of the Sioux, of corporealsymbolism and of yet other fields is the way by which we come to the everyday microcosm andthe great project. Finally we reach the closing chapter entitled The town as curable disease: ritualand hysteria. Freud is invoked (pathological functioning of the memory in case of hysteria and theways of curing it) to help us imagine the town as a system of symbols that we need to shape as such.

One of Choays most recent articles is called Patrimoine urbain et Cyberspace6 as forsummarising the sharpness of the antinomy. The author identifies the mutation induced by this newestcommunication system in the scale of the built inhabited environment. This scale that is largerthan any previous one offers a good opportunity to pay more attention to a smaller, human scalewhose neglect is in great measure responsible for the undoing of our settlements. While thetraditional (close, organic) scale is multi-layered and comprehensible, the more recent ones do notoperate any longer with concepts such as centrality, limits or geometry, but with interconnections,topology and, of course, terminals.

The author points out something rather left out of our current attention: urbanisation is not byall means the same as a city. She raises the question whether it is unavoidable from now on to give upevery direct contact with the real world, limiting ourselves to communicate with it through ourtechnological prostheses? Are our historical settlements condemned to mummification as preciousremains of times forever gone7?

3 in Diog ne, Paris, June 19834 op. cit. p. 505 second edition, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, 19886 in La Pierre dAngle, Paris, October 19977 op. cit. p. 99


Her answer is, naturally, No. It is so because planning at a close scale is one of ourfundamental anthropological values. Two consequences follow from this: firstly, close, humansurrounding cannot be replaced by the functions of the larger territory with which it is in acomplementary relationship; secondly, the space at human scale is not only our most precious heritagebut also the most jeopardised one. Not only is it the most basic but also the least perceived as suchpart of our culture. Its values cannot be seen nor can they be directly exchanged to cash.

What is to be done? Preserve the surviving heritage, of course. However, an objectifying,indistinct conservation done with the excuse of a memory nowadays surviving mostly in books andcomputers would not make sense. Instead Choay defines the close scale planning as the skill oforganically fitting the building into its context, with its immediate physical or human neighbourhood. This should be possible by considering the measure of our bodily data, through thearticulation of the bays and volumes in such a way that they make human intercourse and social tiespossible8.

Franoise Choays criticism opposed to the contemporary city starts from similar grounds asRykwerts. These consist of the abundant though also redundant literature of the CIAM and of thelarge scale achievements following it and the second world war. Nevertheless while Rykwert exploresmostly anthropological analogies in his work, Choay uses semiotic and psychological tools to build upher theories. In Riegl, Freud et les monuments historiques: pour une approche socitale de laprservation9 she draws a parallel between the modern cult for monuments of the art historian andthe disease in the civilisation of the psychiatrist. In both analysis talking is about normal andpathologically altered functions of the memory that have to be acknowledged and treated properly. Inthe end Choay concludes that monument preservation cannot be considered a discipline in itself asdefined in the Venice Charter. We are already faced with a complex social attitude conceivable as areaction to those cultural difficulties which are related to the loss of some of our inborn capabilitiesor, at least, some of our ancient behaviours.

Even the denomination of town has become misleading in our days. For, while the plans ofthe baron Haussmann, of Cerd or Otto Wagner for Paris, Barcelona and Vienna remained attempts toreformulate existing settlements, the new settlements produced after the second world war and thesimplistic doctrines of the CIAM do not succeed in realising the unity between urbs and civitas.Without it no town in the traditional sense can exist.

The historical town is nor the newest nor the last item in the circle of the built heritage. Thisdomain that had started to emerge from the Renaissance on, has been ceaselessly developing since,following the work of Ruskin, Sitte and others, Gustavo Giovannoni identified and determined thehistorical town as architectural heritage not in opposition with new urbanisation, but in completion toit10. In LAllgorie du patrimoine11 Franoise Choay not only outlines the career of the built heritagefrom its emergence till our days. She also tries to throw light on some of those universal matters ofcultural history that, according to her, are inseparable from this phenomenon: the crisis of our edifyingcompetence, the dialectics of building and demolishing, the development of artificial memories inopposition to affective memory, the future of homo sapiens as homo protheticus.

8 op. cit. p. 1009 in Lavin, Irving (editor), Acts of the XXVIth International Congress of the History of Art, III, PennsylvaniaState University Press, University Park and London, 198910 Vecchie citt ed edilizia nuova, 1931, French translation Lurbanisme face aux villes anciennes, Paris, LeSeuil, 199811 Paris, Le Seuil, 1992, second edition 1996, Romanian edition translated by Kzmr Kovcs, Alegoriapatrimoniului, Bucharest, Simetria, 1998


Summarising the positions of Choay and Rykwert:

- The by now redundant criticism of contemporary cities can be useful in the long run onlyif associated to an effort aiming to acknowledge ongoing cultural process, its values andto assume its challenge.

- The settlement of the twentieth century, shaped by industrial revolution and world wars(that can, at times, hardly be called a town) cannot be turned back in its evolutiontowards a traditional form.

- The ancient cities or town fragments surviving in the interstices of the urban spacestructured on overwhelming networks cannot be copied. Instead they can serve asphysical and spiritual models for the building up of an environment conceived on a closescale.

- The conservation of this precious heritage can be of real use only if its spiritual,economical and social being is subject to research and professional preservation like itsphysical support.

- Traditional downtown and urban areas (including urban tissues called by Prec infra-ordinary12) can escape isolation and disappearance induced by museum-likeconservation only if they are organically integrated within the network-settlementsystem.

- The preservation of historical built surrounding is not enough in itself. Both its theoryand practice must constitute the grounds for the survival of an edifying competenceunderstood in its anthropological sense.

Our future settlements will be able to embody together the built heritage of past centuries andcontemporary urban products only if the emerging architecture will be capable of reuniting the oncecoextensive but today antinomic couple: building and demolishing.

In the end I will quote, following Rykwert, Nicias words addressed to his Athenian soldiers onthe beach of Syracuse: You are yourself the town, wherever you chose to settle ... it is men that makethe city, not the walls and the ships without them ... 13

12 Prec, Georges, LInfra-ordinaire, Paris, Le Seuil, l98913 Thucydides, cf. The Idea of a Town, op. cit., p. 23

8 Evolution of the Idea of Historical Monument

Evolution of the Idea of Historical Monument

(Shortened Version)

It is said in the Bible:

They [...] collected a great amount of money.

12.The king and Jehoiada gave it to he men who carried out the work required for the people ofthe Lord. They hired masons and carpenters to restore the Lords temple, and also workers in iron andbronze to repair the temple.

13.The men in charge of the work were diligent, and the repairs progressed under them. Theyrebuilt the temple of God according to its original design and reinforced it.

It is, possibly, the earliest account of an operation bearing the marks of a restoration that wehave14. However, we cannot be mistaken: there is no question of a restoration in our sense of the word.The temple was rebuilt, refunded, or just repaired. No trace of any preoccupation to conserve anarchitectural witness of past epochs, nor of concern for the authenticity of the historical document,even less for the recording of the aesthetic elements of the temple the way they were in its originaldesign. Our obsession for the continuity in time of the material body of architectural objects isentirely absent and so is the unanimous fascination exerted by the historical heritage.

The biblical tale is a rather symbolic time reference. Closer events are at hand to betheoretically approached. If the built heritage phenomenon is a relatively recent one, being aboutsynchronic with modern history, its unprecedented extension both in time and in space is strictlycontemporary evolution.

While contemporary building activity produces objects belonging more to the field of industrialdesign, on the other side we have a conservationist preoccupation powerfully spreading world-wide.The two domains compete with each other and tend to divide the built universe in two campsapparently incompatible.

I.Alois Riegl

Alois Riegl (1858-1905) is the one who first pointed out the relationship between monumentsand historical monuments thus defining the latter. He identifies the memorial function as determiningfor both categories, sorted out by him into intentional and non-intentional monuments. Whilemonuments are made from the very beginning to fulfil their memorial function, historical monumentsacquire in time15 this quality as result of a complicated cultural process.

By determining the value of ancient-ness of historical monuments, Riegl anticipates lateranalysis that deal with the matters of identity in European civilisation at the industrial age16. He alsoforesees the fabulous extension the domain of built heritage will achieve at the end of this millennium.

Already the title of his major book, Der moderne Denkmalkultus [The Modern Cult ofMonuments] (1903) indicates the somewhat unhealthy feature of the then emerging institutionalisedmonument protection. There is a visible tendency of objectifying monuments with fetishist accents.Cultural tourism is often alike to the commerce with relics still flourishing today around pilgrimage

14 Between 900-600 BC, cf. Benedek Marcell (coord.), Irodalmi Lexikon, Gyz Andor, Budapest, 1926, p. 12315 The presence of time with concern to the work of art and its restoration is carefully dealt with in C. Brandi,Teoria restaurrii, p. 53 sq.16 Franoise Choay, Riegl, Freud et les monuments historiques: pour une approche socitale de laprservation. There is also a relevant link to psychoanalysis in Joseph Rykwert, The Idea of a Town,Cambridge Mass., MIT Press, 1988, chapter VI, The City as a Curable disease: Ritual and Hysteria


places. Choay discusses the phenomenon in detail as related to the post war evolution of Europeansociety and calls it, significantly, patrimonial syndrome17.

II.Renaissance in Italy

The cultural attitude which would give birth later on to all the practices aiming to study andpreserve built heritage has appeared in Italy around the year 1420. The reinvestment of Rome18 ascapital city of the Christian world was simultaneous with a new perception of its antique ruins. Thesense of historical progression had just been invented.

Of course there have been conservationist attitudes before that, but these have never beenanything but exceptions19. Earlier societies had rules where the absence of historical perspective maderelationship with built patrimony naturally utilitarian.

The spirit of humanism did it all. The new interest shown for antique remains is first sustained,in the second half of the 14th century, by the relationship between written documents and thearchitectural and artistic marks left over by Greek and Roman Antiquity. Almost one generation later,it was the turn of artists to recognise and assume the artistic heritage of the same epoch. Then, around1420, scholars and artists began an unprecedented dialogue to build up the first idea of the historicalmonument 20.

Beyond the scholarly and artistic interest however, there was something that made the majorityof Renaissance scientists and artists to share the preoccupation for the preservation of antiquities: theirprogressive disappearance. Like in every later period, when theory and practice related to theprotection of historical monuments were to make a crucial step forward, it was the conscience of anirretrievable loss that made their value so poignantly evident.

From the very beginning is also noticeable the paradox that follows the whole evolution of builtheritage. Not only do emerge the practices related to monument protection as a reaction to theirdestruction; these practices also oppose a natural behaviour aiming to replace with new buildings anyolder construction that has become obsolete, or whose physical state makes maintenanceinconvenient. Moreover, the same authorities who prove to be the defenders of built heritage are thefirst to contribute to the utilitarian destruction of the same21. All these facts illustrate thecontradictory character of conservationist attitudes and forecast some of the contemporary features oftheir proliferation.

III.France and England

The birth of the historical monument is thus related to the end of the Middle Ages and to theemergence of a new mental perspective, a historical one. Although a restoration itself, or maybebecause of that, the re-funding of the Western Christianity in Rome creates a break in Europeanhistory. The recovery of Antique traditions in their form and spirit generated a movement that hastoday become the conservation and restoration of historical monuments. Similarities with some of thecontemporary phenomena can provide useful analogies for the understanding of the patrimonialsyndrome

It is therefore quite natural that the institution of conservationist practices the way they areexerted today has happened in the same cultural area where the industrial revolution has taken place.This has brought another major break in cultural continuity. The effects of industrial revolution are

17 Franoise Choay, Alegoria patrimoniului, Bucureti, Simetria, 1998, p. 18618 ibid., p. 1819 ibid., pp. 19 sq.20 ibid. p. 3421 ibid., pp. 39 sq.


still in full development. France and England are exemplary in this sense for having been at thevanguard of the movement. They also developed rather different systems for preserving theirrespective built heritage.

Destruction of ancient buildings is, after the Reformation in England, during the Revolution inFrance and unlike in Rome during the Renaissance, not natural replacement or reuse any longer butideological cleansing. Yet the development that followed these similar beginnings is quite differentin the two countries.

In England, public debate around the matter of built heritage and the initiatives that issued fromthem were the offspring of private enterprise. Private societies for monument protection arecompeting each other and covered all the field from mutilating restorations (Gilbert Scott, Wyatt) toabsolute piety (Ruskin) and the re-invention of handicraft (Morris). The National Trust22, transformedin 1965 from Commons, Open Spaces and Footpaths Preservation Society, now centennial, takes careof an immense heritage and utilises important funds collected with various means23. Beginning withthe Ancient monuments' protection Act from 1882, the State has taken over some of theresponsibilities by promoting a conservationist legislation24, and through the structures of the EnglishHeritage. What is most important, common thinking grants the success of conservationist practices inthe United Kingdom. It is said that once queen Anne's prime minister, at her question about whatwould cost to include the Green Park to her own gardens, answered: A monarchy, Madam25.

In France, preoccupation for the real26 conservation of monuments appeared as the outcome ofpolitical decision within revolutionary organisms. These had to face the unprecedented situationwhere an immense built heritage27 nationalised overnight had to be dealt with. Often improvised, thethen adopted first legislation still stands at the base of todays still highly centralised French systemfor the preservation of historical monuments. They were also a model, in their later form, to the firstRomanian legal framework dealing with the preservation of national heritage.

From Guizot's Rapport28 till the first French law for monument preservation passed (1830 and1889) there is half a century, an interval that witnesses the spreading in France of industrialfabrication. This new system will grow into an overall revolution. Its long lasting effects are foreseenby artists like Hugo or Balzac and would mark in European history a break called by Choay theborderline of the irretrievable29.

IV.Industrial Revolution

It can be said that industrial revolution has reshaped all the major features of European culture.According to Gellner's seducing theory30, industrial revolution is to be held responsible also for thestructure of modern nation-states. The functioning of the latter needs an instituted and maintainedmass culture ensuring the high mobility of its members. Small local cultures and, with them, a certain

22 National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty23 Cf. Rodney Legg, National Trust Centenary, Wincanton, Wincanton Press, 199424 Cf. National Heritage Act, 198325 Legg, op. cit., p. 2226 As opposed to iconographic conservation largely practised in earlier times by antiquarians, cf. Choay, op. cit.,pp. 42 sq.27 It is in the official texts of this epoch that the term first appears as a metaphor for the goods taken over in statecustody, cf. Choay, op. cit., pp. 74-7528 Rapport prsent au Roi, le 21 octobre 1830, par M. Guizot, ministre de l'Intrieur, pour faire instituer uninspecteur gnral des monuments historiques en France, ibid., Attachment I29 ibid., p. 9930 Ernest Gellner, Naiuni i naionalism, Bucureti, Antet - CEU, 1997, especially pp. 201 sq.


sense of rooted-ness in time and space tend to be swallowed by this entropic process. Hence apossible explanation for the patrimonial syndrome31.

On the other hand there is talking about the vanishing of the immediate relationship betweenartefact and artisan. The goods become products, the edifice becomes construction and the craftsman industrial worker. Industrial revolution appears at the cross road of the desacralizing of edifying understood as anthropological activity that founds not only edifices, but also identities and of theprogressive reification of the built object. In this new era of fabrication built space needs newresources in order to fulfil its initial purpose today in ontological errancy.

Individual constructions and whole settlements have a different scale as a result of newtechnological means and networks. On the other hand hierarchy disappears from our traditional urbanspaces. In this ubiquitous landscape architectural monuments are perceived and treated like survivorsof past epochs. The reference they offer is that of a past schematised behind the mass of anonymousindustrial products of a society called consumerist.

V.CIAM and the World Wars

Reckless belief in scientific knowledge, endless economical growth and technological progressare some of the illusions that nourished the major catastrophes of the 20th century. One of these wasthe series of CIAM (Congress International d'Architecture Moderne). The two world wars pointed outthe dangers inherent to technological progress handled irresponsibly. The triumphalism of modernarchitecture indoctrinated by the CIAM, although lacking most of its initial totalitarian energy, is stilleffective today.

Significantly, the two conferences held in Athens32 have had such a different career. Thedominant trend was progressivism. Anything divergent would be labelled as nostalgic andmarginalized.

The plan Voisin (1925) for Paris is an extreme projection of the CIAM doctrine. Its author, LeCorbusier is a controversial figure who has had an influence far more powerful than his rather shallowtheoretical contributions would justify. The explanation lies in the fact that, if the noisiest one, he wasmerely one of the numerous representatives of the artistic trend integrated to scientism andindustrialism. The trend itself is by now exhausted. Yet its effects will last until financial resourceswill be sufficient to allow the replacement of the huge mass of post-corbusian building (except thoselisted as historical monuments). Or, on the contrary, financial resources will become as scarce as tomake any waste unthinkable. A human scale architecture would follow to rediscover the science ofintegrating to the pre-existing context.

VI.Romania within the European Context

Eastern Europe has followed Western evolution with some delay. Synchronisation came in duetime, as long as there were merely natural barriers to pass, such as economical backwardness,exhausting imperial domination and so forth.

Romania sees her first law for the protection of historical monuments as early as 1892. TheFrench model Commission instituted simultaneously has patronised every conservationist initiativeuntil its dissolution ion 194833.

Patrimonial practices could not escape, during the last half century, to the effects ofcommunism. In the neighbouring countries (Czecho-Slovakia, Yugoslavia, Hungary), where firstStalinism was relatively soon replaced by milder forms of totalitarianism, the evolution of patrimonial 31 cf. supra, note 532 One, held in 1931 was the first international gathering to deal with the preservation of historical monuments;the other (1933) was the fourth CIAM which gave the famous Charter of Athens33 cf. Ioan Opri, Comisiunea monumentelor istorice, Bucureti, Editura Enciclopedic, 1994


theory and practice could follow its natural way. Unfortunately in Romania ideological demolitionachieved a level that only seemed suitable for an autarchic and illiterate regime.

In 1977 the Department for historical monuments was dismantled.

In June 1998, the structures of the new Department fort monument preservation are still in arudimentary stage. A strong recovery, in early 1990, was followed by a self devouring process at theend of which everything still needs to be done. The law for built heritage is still in the form of aproject34. No longer a draft, this project still suffers from the over-centralism inherited from the Frenchancestor. Co-operation with private societies for monument preservation is only marginally mentionedwhile the ways of co-operation are left outside the concerns of the project. As no terms are specifiedwhich the various levels of decision must observe, it is to be feared that bureaucratic delays couldcreate difficulties and make the best intentions ineffective.

Meanwhile private societies have emerged (Cluj, Ploieti, Sfntu-Gheorghe, Sibiu). Without thelegal framework that could co-ordinate their efforts, these organisations function on the margins oflegality.

It is to be hoped that a new law, once passed, would offer more than just an institutionalframework for the intervention of the state in patrimonial practices. The not yet created statestructures should attempt to realise a mixed solution between the British and French patterns. In facteven these two systems have lately achieved successful moves towards central co-ordination (theBritish) and de-centralisation (the French).

VII.Contemporary Situation

The unprecedented phenomenon of the world-wide extension of the practices related to theconservation and restoration of built heritage has good reason being called patrimonial inflation35.

There is an increasing number of international documents dealing with the matter that aresigned by an increasing number of countries. Questioned in detail but accepted as a whole, the VeniceCharter36 is followed by a series of documents that continue its articulating enterprise to become aninstitutional one.

Nevertheless there are large areas of shadow remaining. Within the globalization of thephenomenon we are witnessing the emergence of detailed national legislation. On the other hand,instead of a comprehensive general theory of heritage conservation we have to cope with disparatetexts. At times, apparently incompatible positions emerge regarding crucial matters among whichauthenticity is perhaps the most intricate one. The causes are to be found in the ambivalence ofarchitecture - a domain artistic as much as utilitarian, but also in what I earlier called the unhealthyfeature of conservationist attitudes.

It is not easy to foresee an evolution of theoretical and practical issues related to theconservation of built heritage. If we accept the arguments of F. Choay37, soon we shall need a re-evaluation of these attitudes. Otherwise there is a risk that they degenerate due to the contradictionsthey have been carrying with them from the very beginning.

34 Cezara Mucenic (coordinator), Legea Monumentelor Istorice - proiect35 Choay, op. cit., p. 436 The Venice Charter of the ICOMOS from 1964 was followed in 1972 by the Paris Convention of theUNESCO, The Declaration from Amsterdam of the European Council in 1975, The Nairobi Recommendationsof the UNESCO in 1976, The Toledo Charter of the ICOMOS in 1986, The Granada Convention in 1985 andthe La Valetta Convention - revised in 1992 of the European Council. The list is not exhaustive but itnevertheless gives a good idea on the magnitude of international concern for safeguarding of cultural heritage.37 Choay, op. cit., especially the closing chapter: La comptence d'difier


VIII.Conclusions

Any building (or built environment) can achieve the status of architecture if it bearsmeanings38. Moreover, if it belongs to a technological past, it has all the chances to become part of thebuilt heritage. Such generalisation of the process of monumentification tends to annul theconsecrated sense of the idea of historical monument. If every finished building is potentiallyprotected, then conservationist attitude re-becomes what it has once been: economic use of extantbuildings. The difference lies in the fact that today we acknowledge and assume as such the value forour identity of built environment.

Conservationist doctrines will have to be integrated to an overall architectural theory. Such acorpus will have to have a pragmatic side regulating the maintenance, repair and reuse of buildings,while establishing a precise hierarchy of their respective value.

The matter of protected natural areas has to be mentioned here. Although not artefactsthemselves, these vast natural enclosures are inhabited in the sense that they are subject toaesthetic and economical evaluation. With a few exceptions there will hardly be any un-inhabitedarea on Earth in a few decades' time. The process called anti-urbanisation or de-urbanisation39 wouldbe closed. The post-urban age would have begun40.

Once we accept the idea of the patrimonial syndrome, that the globalization of thepatrimonial mentality is a sign of the crisis of our edifying competence41, the re-evaluation of the builtenvironment as a whole can constitute the basis of a renewed edifying competence. Such knowledgeshould comprise the whole range of building activities. It will make the distinction between heritageof universal value, vernacular architecture or infra-ordinary42 urban textures and will provide specifictreatment for each category. New architecture will know how to integrate within the context and howto demolish properly what is unnecessary.

It is inevitable that our edifices recover a sense of dignity. Archaic funding rituals are nowforgotten. Instead, assuming artificial space as adequate continuation of the natural one in the sense ofan ecological contextualism can be an actual approach. It is obvious that disposable architecturalproducts having nothing to do in the built environment. Unless they are also recyclable, but this isanother story. A post-architectural one.

38 cf. Geoffrey Broadbent, A Plain Man's Guide to the Theory of Signs in Architecture, Architectural Design,7-8, 197739 Gustavo Giovannoni, Vecchie Citt ed Edilizia nuova, Torino, Unione tipografico-editrice, 1931, Frenchversion: L'urbanisme face aux villes anciennes, Paris, Le Seuil, 1998, cf. Choay, op. cit., p. 15240 Melvin Webber, The Post-City Age, Daedalus, New York, 1968, cf. ibid.41 cf. supra, note 542 cf. Georges Prec, LInfra-ordinaire, Paris, Le Seuil, 1989

14 Criteria for the Evaluation of Historical Monuments

Criteria for the Evaluation of Historical Monuments

(Shortened Version)

I.The Value attributed to Historical Monuments

Initial, memorial monuments are present in every known culture thus being a universalphenomenon43. Unlike them, historical monuments have a finite domain in time and space. They arebeing historical also in the sense that they appeared at a precise moment44 and that, in spite of theirpresent spreading world wide, they are a fundamentally European invention.

Since their emergence in the 15th century historical monuments have been progressivelyinvested with significance. These ended up by consecrating them and bring them the universallyrecognised status they enjoy today. However, the nature of this significance, its elements and theirproportion have not been constant through time. One of its features, though, has remained unchangedall along. The appearance and development of the idea of historical monument are due to thediscovery, during the Renaissance in Europe, of historical progression.

The universal recognition enjoyed today by cultural heritage denotes the fact that Europeanvalues connected to it have been integrated by cultures (such as Japanese, for instance) which bytradition ignored European historical perspective. The explanation lies on the one hand in theglobalization of European culture (Eurocracy). On the other, in the spreading of post-industrialidentity crisis regardless to local traditions. For all these reasons debate around the concept ofhistorical monument is relentless and will remain so as long as the historical monument will fulfil itsmemorial function.

The domain of cultural heritage has undergone a spectacular process of extension in everysense45. Unheard of categories of artefacts have been integrated to the field, such as minor, vernacularor industrial architecture. The age of some of them is merely of a few decades. The idea itself ofurban heritage46 is older than some of the monumentified ensembles (Chandigarh, Sheffield).

Hence the need to continuously re-consider the values embodied by historical monuments and,for practical reasons, of the quantifiable criteria as grounds for strategies aiming to conserve andrestore built heritage. Specialised international boards work on this issue today, producing Charters,Conventions and Recommendations meant to establish a framework for international co-operation inthe field.

National institutions are created to integrate these documents and complement them withspecific legislation. All these developments demonstrate an unprecedented concern for culturalheritage and its values.

1.Values Representations and Functions

The importance of cultural heritage has received a gradual recognition marked by lapses andshifts of the emphasis. The process is in course and the debate around it is actual, vivid and diverse.Some points are to be made for our subject.

Not only was Riegl the first to utter the key word cult47. He also divides the complex set ofvalues legitimating this cult in two categories. The monumental ones are the values for the memoryand those for the present. The first category comprises the value for ancient-ness, historical value and

43 Franoise Choay, Alegoria patrimoniului, Bucureti, Simetria, 1998, p. 744 ibid. p. 1845 ibid. p. 246 ibid .p. 13147 Alois Riegl, Le culte moderne des monuments, Paris, Le Seuil, 1993


intentional memorial value, while the latter is made of the utilitarian and artistic - relative and novelty- values. It is noteworthy that Riegl includes the intentional - memorial - monuments as a sub-category of non-intentional - historical - monuments. He can do this while clearly telling the onesfrom the others, due to other features they have in common: memorial monuments also acquire artisticor other significance with the time. They too become subject of historical perspective.

Urban heritage was invented as a result of the un-doing of human settlements followingindustrial revolution. Franoise Choay distinguishes not values but representations that articulate theimportance of urban heritage. These are the memorial, historical and historical - a synthesis of the firsttwo - representation. The latter first appears formulated by Gustavo Giovannoni in a book unjustlyignored in recent times48.

We shall mark a few relevant stages of Choay's demonstration. In order to avoid confusion, theterm function will be used to point out various dimensions of the patrimonial phenomenon. We alsointend to recover the distance of modern architecture to built heritage artificially established bydogmatic functionalism. The term function has been abused by trivial and restrictive reduction. Weare certain that semantic symbolic or aesthetic adequacies are also architectural function.

2.The Documentary function

Humanists during the Renaissance find out that historical progression is irreversible. Thus anessential difference is marked from traditional cultures operating with a cyclic vision of the history ofan ever lasting present. This awakening makes humanists to see the historical monuments in thesubstance of antique vestiges.

These remains first reveal themselves as a special kind of historical documents. Their researchcan be corroborated with and their testimony opposed to that of the ancient texts. Only later begins theartistic quality of antiquities enjoy the attention of Renaissance artists and scholars. The twoapproaches (called by Choay the Petrarca, respectively the Brunelleschi effect49), remain parallel forsome time and will not fully intertwine until the 17th century to give birth to the modern idea of ahistorical monument. Choay speaks about cognitive and artistic values to designate these two levelsfor evaluation.

3.The Aesthetic function

The artistic value, already identified during the Renaissance, is not to be consecrated until theRomanticism, when it enjoys pre-eminence in the evaluation of historical monuments. The traces timeleaves on monuments beget aesthetic value. The taste for ruins, for instance, will have an exceptionalcareer50. Riegl points out that the artistic value continuously changes depending of the artistic will(Kunstwollen)51 of each epoch. Sometimes it interferes with the art historical value, doubles its senseand often brings to contradictions when a strategy for conservation is to be established52. In fact thedispute between interventionists and non-interventionists, begun in England two hundred years ago,has still not been concluded in spite of the post-war experience. The destruction and subsequentrebuilding have produced a crucial shift in conservationist mentality without succeeding, however toestablish a clear borderline between legitimate and forbidden reconstruction. It is nevertheless obvious 48 Gustavo Giovannoni, Vecchie citt ed edilizia nuova, Milano, 1931, French version: L'urbanisme face auxvilles anciennes, Paris, Le Seuil, 1998 and cf. F. Choay, op. cit. p. 151 sq.49 Choay, op. cit. pp. 32-3350 The taste for picturesque ruins achieves a remarkable longevity, even in texts proving little interest for art andarchitecture. Cf. for instance Dame Rose Macaulay, The Pleasure of Ruins, London, 1953: And there is roomfor all approaches in that ruin-wilderness, where the antiques lie sunk like galleons in a heaving sea. pp. 212-21351 Riegl, op. cit., pp. 41 i 11152 ibid. p. 84


that in any case of rebuilding the aesthetic function prevailed as opposed to the function ofancientness. Thus the latter was open towards what we shall call the identity function.

4.The Function of Ancientness

The ancientness value was from the very beginning part of the configuration of the historicalmonument, implicit to the historical perspective. For a long time, only the vestiges of Greek andRoman Antiquity were regarded as monuments. Later came the remains of Eastern Antiquity. It wasnot before the assuming of national values that Gothic monuments were integrated. Early Mediaevalones had to wait till the end of the 19th century to be accepted.

Therefore the value of ancientness was until recently self understood and underestimated.Modern times have their revelation and it is again Riegl who gives them an articulate expression in190353. If the other functions of historical heritage belong to scientifically, aesthetically mediatedfields, the function of ancientness is immediately approachable to anyone. This is why it hasoriginated the extraordinary extension of the patrimonial domain at the end of this century. Scientificand artistic values have not vanished from the semantic configuration of the historical monument, butthey could not explain themselves its huge world-wide success.

5.The Identity Function

The feeling of an irretrievable loss grew among the effects of industrial revolution. Thisrecognition has nourished debates around the theory and practice of the conservation of historicalmonuments. John Ruskin is - not only for England - one of the most dedicated apostles of this idea.We owe to him the democratisation of the historical monument but also a tendency to fetishize itsphysical substance. The piety expressed in many of his writings54 has by now faded away neverthelessit extended the domain of the function of ancientness. Vernacular architecture was discovered inEngland to be recognised world wide afterwards due to its identity function mostly. It is relevant hereto mention the transformation suffered by peasant architecture when taken over by high cultureduring the movements of national revival in the 19th century Europe55.

Choay formulates explicitly the identity function of built heritage in the last chapter of herbook. Our diverse monuments do not have value in themselves any longer but because we have builtthem. They are fragments of a generic representation of ourselves56. Elsewhere she quotes the work ofa fiction writer. Prec57 writes about the subjective mechanisms that turn parts of the builtenvironment into fundamental spaces to define individual or group identity.

II.Minefields

1.The Authenticity

The final document adopted at the Nara conference on authenticity in December 1994 madelittle light on the matter. Reference is made to the Venice Charter58, but there authenticity appears onlytwice and marginally59. No answer is given to the major question: what relevance does authenticityhave as a criterion in the evaluation of historical monuments?

53 ibid. p. 6254 John Ruskin, Stones of Venice, New York, Merrill & Baker, 189555 Ernest Gellner, Naiuni i Naionalism, Antet - CEU, 1997, pp. 90-9156 Choay, op. cit. p. 18557 Georges Prec, Linfra-ordinaire, Paris, Le Seuil, 198958 Nara document on authenticity, 1059 Venice Charter, in S. Nistor, Protecia monumentelor i ansamblurilor istorice n documente internaionale,Bucureti, IAIM, 1997, p.55


Choay's paper presented at the conference60 deals with precisely this matter. IN the positivesense, says she, authenticity has but little relevance. The term has been taken from archaeology andart history without precautions. In the sense of material and morphological conformity with afictitious original, the notion can be applied in conservation and restoration only in a relative way61.Authenticity is important mainly in the negative sense of the forgery.

As for the material support of the built object, Choay insists on the difference between theworks of painting or sculpture and those of architecture. The example of Japanese Shinto temples isquoted, ritually rebuilt every 20 or 30 years. It is the craftsmanship of their builders that is conservedin Japan as part of the national heritage, not the material body of the temples.

If the artistic function of a building is the most important one, it is obvious that the maintenanceof the original support needs maximum of concern. It is the case of the church of Saint Francis inAssisi recently mutilated by the earthquake. No matter how careful, restoration will not be capable ofretrieving the destroyed frescoes their entire authenticity as prior to the disaster. On the other handone cannot speak about the in-authenticity of the repainting of the Eiffel tower without talkingabsurdity.

We believe that determining the domain in which authenticity can be relevant to a particularpiece of built heritage constitutes a crucial research matter. The way authenticity is expressed in eachcase can also indicate with relative precision the appropriate strategies for its conservation andrestoration.

2.Restoration

Restoration was the seed of quarrels around the (effective, not merely documentary)conservation of historical monuments from the very beginning. By the middle of this centuryrelatively restoration principles coagulated into a functional system excluding both extremes:libertine interventions (like those of Viollet-le Duc or Wyatt) and non-interventionism (advocatedby Ruskin). Then came second world war destruction to impose unprecedented reconstruction thatbroke the limits of earlier precepts.

Intertwined with the matter of authenticity and equally intricate, the problem of architecturalrestoration must not be theorised similarly to restoration of artworks in spite of obvious similarities(material support, significance, techniques). Differences reside in the spatial character of architectureand in its functionality. Both aspects impose abandoning the severe criteria otherwise fully legitimateof restoration theory62. We subscribe to the importance of keeping as much as possible the originalmaterial of the architectural work, even when it is of small historical and aesthetic value. Yet wesupport the pre-eminence of the corporeality of architectural experience and the documentary validityof identical building techniques.

3.Significance

Progressive semantization of the built object is dealt with by Geoffrey Broadbent. According tohim all buildings carry meanings and that is why the functionalists' dream of a machine-like andmeaning-free architecture never was anything more than a dream63. In time all buildings acquire layersof significance. When these buildings belong to built heritage, significance addresses to a collectivememory and result in behaviors associated to the cult of historical monuments.

60 Franoise Choay, apte propoziii... in Alegoria patrimoniului, op. cit.61 ibid. p. 19962 Cesare Brandi, Teoria restaurrii, Bucureti, Meridiane, 1996, especially pp. 109 sq.63 Geoffrey Broadbent, A Plain Man's Guide to a Theory of Signs in Architecture, Architectural Design, 7-8,1977, p. 475


The domain of artefacts susceptible to be integrated to cultural heritage expanded parallel to theincreasing importance of the function of ancientness relative to other functions determiningmonumental quality. Today there is no man made object that is not potentially monumentifiable.Such tendency points towards a stage where everything will be protected which is absurd.

4.Technology

Every artefact tends to gather memorial value once its mode of execution becomes outdated.The hegemony of the value of ancientness, foreseen by Riegl, emerged progressively together withthe democratisation of the access to cultural heritage and also with the individualisation of culture.Contemporary pluralism favoured the integration to the field of monuments of pieces that carrymeanings for relatively restrained groups. Sub-culture reaches the domain of cultural heritage.

The irrepressible extension of the patrimonial domain is accompanied by the dissolution andfragmentation of its semantic field. Thus evaluation systems must achieve higher level of diversity tooin order to be used efficiently for a particular strategy of intervention. This is a contradictory process.On the one hand, coherence must survive between general rules of the centre and particularities ofthe periphery with its specific heritage to preserve. National legislation often responds well to suchchallenge, like in Australia. On the other hand, adequacy must be found with each particular case,more and more marginal.

No matter how accurate the regulations, restorers need often to invent ad hoc solutions. If todayone criterion to identify a historical monument is the outdated-ness of the technique used to make it,the maintenance - let alone restoration - of the monument requires the keeping those techniquesalive. Specialised craftsmen must be conserved. The farther in time a particular technology wasused, the more expensive this sort of conservation will be.

III.Attempts to Quantify

1.Criteria for the evaluation

No matter how limpid the cultural functions of built heritage and how elaborate concerningregulations, establishing a system for the evaluation of historical monuments seems a task almostimpossible.

Firstly, the values associated to historical monuments are continuously changing, oftencompeting each other. For instance, as Riegl pointed out, the utilitarian and the artistic value of oneand the same monument can deny the value of ancientness64.

Then, even if we put in place a methodology to operate distinctly with pre- and post-industrialheritage, with Antique, Baroque, Mediaeval, or Modern monuments or with the minor categories.Still in each particular case we shall have to deal with distinct conditions according to buildingmaterial, degree of conservation, size of the community involved, financial resources, professionalquality of craftsmen to carry out the works available and so on.

.A set of criteria for the evaluation is still needed, facing the two major needs: sufficientgenerality to comprise all individual cases and conveniently detailed to fit the practical needs ofspecialists having to cope with the work on hand.

The system built by Sanda Voiculescu65 is an attempt to respond these requirements. It is also asuccessful one by annulling a part of the contradictions through the digitalisation of the problem.Using mathematical figures is the more welcome as the terminology of relevant international

64 Riegl, op. cit., p. 8965 Sanda Voiculescu, Stabilirea listei monumentelor istorice, propunere de metodologie, in Monumenteistorice i de art, 1, Bucureti, 1983, remade in Selectarea monumentelor de arhitectur, o posibil metod,manuscript, Bucureti, 1998


documents is often vague (e.g. outstanding universal value66, or, remarkable through historical,,archaeological, artistic, scientific, social and technical character67). Distinction is made between thecultural value conferred to a certain architectural object and the quality of architectural monumentwhich, technically speaking, is a legal status68. In her conclusions, Voiculescu assumes the limits ofher approach due to the difficulties of establishing standards and proposes, instead of firm borderlines,border zones to avoid bad decision.

In spite of a percentage of only 5 points - that we consider insufficient as compared to its realimportance - to the affective criterion (including memorial function) in the overall evaluation ofmonumental quality, the quantifying method proposed by Voiculescu offers a useful tool that can helpreducing the margins of error in primal evaluation. It can be especially effective in the cases ofuncertain monumentification.

2. Education

A complete doctrine for conservation and restoration of built heritage is not possible. Thepatrimonial domain is continuously changing both in its physical being and theoretical reflection.Therefore the education of those engaged in the theory and practice of heritage preservation must bethe object of a concern of no less urgency than it was in the time of Viollet-le-Duc69.

To be adequate to todays extension of the patrimonial field a new system to create specialistsshould be invented. Such programs would produce rehabilitationists rather than restorers. Theycould cope with the large - though vanishing rapidly - amount of infra-ordinary70 urban texturesalmost entirely lacking artistic or historical function, but bearing specific and irreplaceable identityfunction.

3.Administration

Decision making with concern to built heritage must be the share of specialists. Theoreticalmodels have, unfortunately, too often proved limited if a natural piety in front of the endless richnessof reality was absent. It is enough to conjure controversial restoration by Viollet-le-Duc, Wyatt, orGilbert Scott, more recently, the emptying of historical facades.

In the case of listing the monuments it is necessary to involve all the concerned bodies in orderto respond optimally to the needs of communities - may they be village or global. The decision groupshould have access to evaluations of various levels of comprehension and of diverse origin.

The examples of France and England are again relevant as to how much care can be given tothe requirement of well-founded decision making71.

IV.Conclusions: The Science of Demolishing

The tendency to integrate any artefact out of fabrication to the patrimonial domain may bringthe end of the historical monument in its original sense. To keeps everything means to demolishnothing. All hierarchy would have last its point.

The impossibility to conclude the five hundred years old quarrel between conservationistsand progressists is the sign of a dysfunction. Between the two extremes there is, though, a right

66 Convenia pentru protejarea patrimoniului cultural i natural mondial, in S. Nistor, op. cit., p. 15, my italics67 Convenia pentru protecia patrimoniului arhitectural al Europei in ibid., p. 25, my italics68 Voiculescu, op. cit., p. 369 Entretiens sur lArchitecture, cf. Choay, op. cit.70 cf. Prec, op. cit.71 Choay, op. cit., Appendix 2 and Allan Dobby, Conservation and Planning, London, Hutchinson, 1978


measure known, it seems, by ancient civilisations. A few elements of this lost knowledge can still bepointed out.

The Rhythm of the changes undergone by our built spaces was measurable with the unit ofmore generations. Thus these changes occurred organically, comprised within the limits of a naturalsearch for novelty.

The Scale of intervention blew up during the last century due, mostly, to technologicalprogress. The roots are still to be found at the end of the Middle Ages when modern states in theirearly stage begin to concentrate capital. These political structures want to give architecturalexpression to their newly emerging identity which, in the 19th century should become national.

The magnificence of the buildings has always been the privilege of political and militarypower. Now the semantic contents become progressively laic, but they go on using means earlierreserved for sacral architecture. Hence the confusion that is still heavily marking Europeanarchitecture.

To re-define the essential difference between natural and artificial on the one hand, betweenpre-industrial and industrial heritage on the other must be a first step towards the right measure in theapproach of any intervention.

The disappearance of Hierarchy in built environment is equivalent to the loss of a fundamentalreference system. This would explain architectural monsters of all times and, most of all, those built inthis century. The absence of the centre, natural up to a point, needs to be assumed and compensatedby a profane hierarchy of the design.

Although designed settlements are present in human history from its very beginning besidethose developed naturally, these urban spaces left enough room to free invention to avoid one of theplagues of contemporary developments: Anonymity. The example of Barcelona is enough to provethat the right urban policy can improve poor planning. Otherwise the chessboard plan of Cerd couldhave resulted the dullest of cities which is certainly not the case. The obsession of theGesamtkunstwerk - or rather the ambition to control through the design every single detail in a domainbound to change through usage cannot result anything but dead objects.

21 Plenik's Art

Plenik's Art

(Shortened Version)

... graves at my command

Have wak'd their sleepers, op'd, and let them forth

By my potent art.72

(Prospero)

Until recently, the name of Joe Plenik did not mean too much to the architectural history ofthe 20th century except for a small spot: Slovene architecture. If mentioned at all, his architecture waslabelled as nostalgic or classicist. Fashions change. Today Plenik is re-discovered73, celebrated aspost-modernist avant la lettre, attached by Slovene national revival as funding father. Monographs arepublished and, in spite of difficulties issuing from the immovability of architecture, travellingexhibitions of his oeuvre are organised74. He is equally well sold by tourist enterprise. His effigyornaments he banknote of 500 Slovene tolars. A truly post-modern career follows the oblivion of aquarter of century.

Plenik does not need rehabilitation. Much more interesting appears an interpretation of hisarchitecture from a perspective until now very little touched by research: what are those elements inPlenik's oeuvre that make of his heritage an architecture different from the mass of post-vanguardconstruction. I am thinking firstly of the death of Functionalism as a result of the wearing out ofillusions nurturing a scientific progress without limits and of the disappointment due to its semanticpoverty. Secondly, as a reaction to the side effects of industrial revolution and in counter-balance toits result, the hegemony of functionalism, our century has witnessed the consecration andglobalization of the cult of built heritage.

Between the extremes of feckless destruction and unlimited conservationism, Plenik somehowkeeps the sensitive balance of demolition and edifying. Today, his architecture ironically shares thefate of listed monuments with the oeuvre of the chief figures of functionalism.

By corroborating studies done by Plenik scholars with my interpretations I shall try to pointout a few of those features that make him an architect not merely different from the majority of hiscontemporaries, but a fundamentally different one. I want to identify those elements that turnPlenik's architecture into a unique contribution by the fact that it ignores the gap75 between pre-industrial and post-industrial built environment. Such an approach can provide a key to understandingthe world wide cult of built heritage76 today. Following the argument of Franoise Choay, thisphenomenon is a symptom of our edifying competence about to be lost77. The way Plenik createsarchitecture in the historical continuity challenges the announced death of architecture78 andoutlines the domain where the recent interest shown to the oeuvre of this architect goes beyond being

72 William Shakespeare, The Tempest, act V scene 1, in The Complete Works, Edited by W. J. Craig, TrinityCollege, Dublin, Henry Pordes, London, 199373 The first studies on the most fertile period of Plenik's life, the Ljubljana sequence, appeared only in 1983 bythe publisher of the Polytechnic school in Headington, Oxford74 Prague Castle hosted in 1996 a gigantic show at present on a tour across the ocean. Besides the restored (oreven reconstituted) buildings and gardens of Plenik in the Hrad documents, plans, photographs and archivefilms were put on show together with small scale models or a spectacular collection of chalices designed by him.75 Franoise Choay, Alegoria patrimoniului, Bucureti, Simetria, 1998, p. 99, the frontier of the irretrievable76 cf. the phrase of Alois Riegl, Le culte moderne des monuments, Paris, Le Seuil, 199277 Franoise Choay, op.cit., cf. especially the closing chapter, The Edifying Competence78 cf. Rem Koolhaas, After architecture, in Preston Thomas Lectures, Cornell University, 1997, quoted byFranoise Choay, L'Architecture daujourdhui au miroir du De Re Aedificatoria in Albertiana, 1998, p. 10

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a mere fashion. On this territory of edifying continuity the preservation of built heritage loses itssickly composure without for that missing its anthropological sense. I believe that this integrativefeature is precisely the core of Plenik's Art.

Plenik in Vienna

The young carpenter's apprentice from Ljubljana comes to work in the furniture factory ofLeopold Theyer in Vienna. He is encouraged to ask for admission at Otto Wagner's studio. Scaredfirst by his obvious lack of preparation, he comes back to receive his diploma in 1898 after only fouryears of studying. At Wagner's retirement in 1912, of all his pupils it was Plenik who wasrecommended both by the board of the Akademie der Bildenden Kunst and Viennese specialist publicopinion to become his successor. Had it not been the chauvinism of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, hemight have remained in Vienna. As it turned out, he went to teach in Prague. His style would not keepfrom the early times of the Wagnerschule but a few - important - reminiscences such as freedom inreinterpreting historical elements79, elegance of the surface and respect paid to technical details.

Masaryk at the Castle

Architectural specialists give all the credit [for the architectural achievements at PragueCastle] to Plenik, which amounts to a risky underestimation of Masaryk, who appears to have beenone of the most thoughtful politicians in that or any other age.80 Ian Jeffrey sustains this observationthrough biographical data and quotations from writings of the first Czechoslovak president81. Itbecomes clear that the Masaryk the philosopher would want a public architecture premeditated to thelast detail, [through which] the whole nation might be elevated aesthetically and morally, and generaleducation might be spread. Like Ruskin, Masaryk believes that humankind can be improved byaesthetic means. There is no doubt that his influence on the new configuration of the Hrad,Acropolis82 of the new state in search for identity, was crucial. It is important, from our point of view,to note that the remarkable architecture invented by Plenik in Prague is also the result of his spiritualco-operation with his commissioner.

Where did the encounter between the philosopher president and the architect take place? One afreemason, the other a fervent Catholic, belonging to different generations and classes, they couldwell never have met. Precepts like Maul halten und weiterdienen83, or turn towards yourselvesseem to have been leading (meta-architectural) principles all along Plenik's career. The modesty ofhis approach is one of the resources of the openness of his architectural conceptions - in this case,towards the ideas of his commissioner. The ideas of someone who wrote that a man (considered alsoby him to be pi84):who wants to think must make a bid for isolation, must besomething of a hermit85. Plenik seems to be the embodiment of such a hermit living a life built onMasaryk's precepts, like love, humanity must be positive or what humanity, our family, our party,

79 cf. Damjan Prelovek, Ideological Substratum in Plenik's Work, in Josip Plenik, an architect of PragueCastle, exhibition catalogue, Prague, 1996, p. 9480 Ian Jeffrey, Architectural and Earthly Delights, in London Magazine, April-May 1998, p. 7881 Tom Garrigue Masaryk, born in 1850 in Moravia, philosopher and sociologist, professor at the universitiesfrom Vienna (1879), Prague (1882) and at King's College in London (1915), president of Czechoslovakiabetween 1918-193582 Damjan Prelovek, op. cit., p. 9683 A saying of Plenik [Hold your tongue and keep serving] from his Viennese period, cf. Klein Rudolf, JoePlenik, Akadmiai kiad, Budapest, 1992, p. 9. It comes perhaps from his past as a carpenter's apprenticeexpressing humbleness and his incapability to theorise.84 [zoon politikon], Tom G. Masaryk, How to Work, in The Ideals of Humanity, London, Allen & Unwin,1938, p. 17985 ibid. p. 158

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our comrade needs from us is work86. The architect and his commissioner met on the commonground of fundamental moral values.

Of course the importance of formal influences on Pleniks interventions on the Castle is not tobe disregarded. The new democracy needed an adequate style. Imperial monumentality was out ofquestion while vanguard modernism could associate the autocratic rgime of soviet Russia. Masarykunderstood too well Marxist collectivism87 to adopt such expression.

The publishing of The Palace of Minos at Crete (London, 1921) by Sir Arthur Evans revealed aformal and spiritual universe that caught Plenik's imagination88. Mediterranean overtones werealready present in the mythical imagery of the Slovene architect as symbolic tools for his moderatepan-slavism (limited as it was to Western Catholic Slavs) 89. His obelisks, pyramids, cornices andarchaic columns could have remained in the realm of pastiche, had they not been melted together in acoherent style by the modernity90 of Plenik. A well-balanced functionality structures the semanticload and the monumentality of his compositions that otherwise would easily slip into extravagance oranachronism. The openness of Cretan spaces, the absence of fortifications and the free play of stylisticelemen

Monumument Presrvation in Central Europe

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