Thematic dossier - After restoration - Hypothetical developments in the concept of Historic Monument

Two decades ago Françoise ^Choay's The Allegory of Heritage1 appeared in Romanian. The book offered - as it still does today - an annotated history of the emergence and evolution of the concept of historical monument, so precise and complete that little remains to be said about the essence of the heritage phenomenon. Twenty years, however, is enough time to attempt a brief review - as much as can fit in a specialized journal - of some of the aspects that may correspond to one or another of the many possible meanings of post-restoration.
In 2001, three years after the publication of Alegoriei and two years after the book's launch in Bucharest in the presence of the author, the new Romanian law on historical monuments was finally published.² The whole series of previous, post-war regulations, under which many historical monuments had been restored,³ had been repealed in ¹⁹⁷⁷.4 The new law was to be repealed in 2001. Thus, one can speak of a restoration of the heritage legislative framework in Romania. In the time that has elapsed since then, i.e. a period of legal post-restoration, the sustained effort to normalize interventions on cultural heritage has met with an equally sustained resistance from the necessary partners in conservation: owners or administrators of historical monuments, building professionals. As things are taking place against the backdrop of the information revolution (or electro-telematics, to use an expression coined by Choay), when cyberspace is frequently confused with the real world, conditions are not conducive to achieving a relative, necessary consensus based on heritage values; although they are shared by all, they remain unrecognized as such by most members of society. In the long term, the optimal treatment of the built environment, maintaining a balance between the conservation of historic structures and the renewal of the built stock through the addition of new pieces, depends on the consistent education not only of conservation specialists but also of the public.
A second, more specific aspect of post-restoration is, of course, the posterity of any restored historic monument. Architecture, and even more so architecture that has become cultural heritage, lasts over generations. From this point of view, the sequence following restoration is related to the persistence of buildings over time and is the very stake of the intervention.

It was two decades ago that the Romanian edition of Françoise Choay's The Allegory of the ^Heritage1 was published. The book offered - and it still does - such an accurate and complex commented history of the apparition and evolution of the concept of historical monument that little is left to say about the essence of patrimonial phenomenon. However, a twenty-year interval is long enough to account for attempting a brief survey on several aspects selected from among the many possible definitions of post-restoration publishable in the outline of a specialized magazine.
In 2001, three years after The Allegory came out and two years after the launch of the book taking place in Bucharest in the presence of the author, the new Romanian law on historical monuments was finally ^passed2. Throughout this seemingly legal post-restitution period, the sustained effort undertaken to normalize the interventions on cultural heritage clashes against an equally sustained opposition coming from the indispensable partners in conservation: the owners or administrators of the historical monuments, construction domain experts. Given the fact that things unfold in the context of the informational (or electro-telematic, according to an expression coined by Choay) revolution and virtual space is frequently taken for the real one, the conditions are not favorable to achieving a related necessary consensus grounded on patrimonial values; although shared by all, their essence remains unknown to the majority of society. On the long term, the optimal approach for the built environment which would help maintain the balance between the conservation of historical buildings and the renewal of the built stock through the addition of new elements is tributary to the constant education of both conservation experts and the public.
Secondly, a yet more specific aspect of post-restoration is definitely the posterity inherent to all restored historical monuments. Architecture, in general, and architectural heritage, in particular, last several generations. From this point of view, the post-restoration phase relies on the temporal endurance of the buildings, representing the actual stake of the intervention focused on them.

The functional accommodation, the perception of the monument, its integration into the always present living environment contribute to the success of the design approach and justify the investment - financial, of course, but also professional, cultural, social - in maintaining the physical existence of old structures. Research into cases of successful interventions, rather than failed attempts, can provide benchmarks for good practice and, above all, strong arguments in favor of continuing efforts to safeguard the valuable built environment.
But perhaps the most exciting territory of investigation in the post-restoration context is the prospective one: what will the human world look like after restorative practices, doctrines, habits (in the narrow sense) have become the past? ^Elsewhere5 we have assumed that, at the end of the evolution of the concept of the historic monument, the conservation of the built heritage will be integrated into the general practices of building the built environment. This will by no means mean the abandonment of conservation, but the gradual, desirable disappearance of disparities between building new architecture and preserving old architecture. The project(ant)s approach will shift the emphasis from invention to contextual accommodation, according to the data of theme and site, without accident.
"The physical existence of historical monuments can be prolonged in time, long enough to support the re-establishment of a new cultural identity of the species, under the sign of different spatial coordinates from the traditional ones. However, the number and importance of the great monuments of universal architecture is in relative decline. The possibly integrated conservation of the built heritage and the totality of the activities associated with this concern will only acquire their full anthropological meaning if, at the end of their evolution, they cancel themselves out and melt into the integrated system of the building gesture which alone can sustain the corporeality of our presence in time."⁶
Once again, the precondition for the emergence of this fruitful harmony between (only) apparently irreconcilable camps is education. The major stumbling block to the proper realization of the anthropic environment is not the absence of material means, but ignorance.
The thematic dossier of the double issue - the last of 2017 and the first of 2018 - of Arhitectura magazine is dedicated, very appropriately, to "post-restoration". It cannot set out to eradicate ignorance about built heritage, nor even to touch on a sufficiently large number of aspects of the tangled issue. The present attempt is limited to pointing out a problem by means of examples and to calling for a concerted effort of knowledge and recognition which could, in time, result in more appropriate attitudes towards the heritage field. Thus, the contributions that follow do not form a narrative, nor do they constitute a propaedeutic for a theory of post-restoration. The dossier appears rather as a collection of fragments, in the image and likeness of the heritage field, but also of the times of divided representation of the ^world7 that we live in.
The research pieces in the current issues shed light on various aspects of the field under investigation: their themes range from urban renewal to conservation conservation conservation - that is, restoration interventions that have been outdated in terms of doctrine, techniques and building materials; conservation of historic layers and intangible heritage - the essence of the historic monument - the aporias of restoration. These are just some of the myriad possible implications of the theme. Just as each historic monument is unique in its own way, so too are the ways in which they are restored, and the destiny of historic buildings or sites remains unrepeatable. And the reflection on cultural heritage and the complex issues involved in restoration and re-restoration also remains ever-changing.

The opening text is an article by Françoise Choay, reprinted from an earlier issue of Arhitectura. Its republication is justified primarily by the topicality of the debate to which it contributes, which addresses the very idea of restoration. The in-depth and nuanced commentary on the position of the two emblematic figures of the historical debate, Ruskin and Viollet-le-Duc, sheds fresh light on the dialogue between them, updates the issue and, last but not least, challenges the petrified habits of thought. The problematization of the restoration is the perfect way to inaugurate the series of contributions that follows.
The work of Valencian architect couple Fernando Vegas and Camilla Mileto excels in contextual sensitivity. Without being restorations in the strict sense of the term - and thus falling into a hypothetical "meta-restoration" area - their urban renewal interventions combine new architecture with the preservation and integration of old, valuable urban structures in a lavish manner. The project presented here is an exemplary illustration of a design principle that can rightly aspire to the edification of the inhabited environment in a possible post-restoration era.
The Italian architect and professor Stefano D'Avino is present in the thematic dossier with a reflection generated by the recent earthquakes in Umbria (2016), which toppled significant portions of old urban centers in the affected territory. Ostensibly a question of "pre-restoration", the problematic formulated in the context of an emergency that could diminish speculative appetite is put into perspective the great series of seismic disasters that have occurred in Italy in the last half century, the experience gained throughout the restoration and reconstruction efforts that followed them. The interventions, which are different from those usually carried out in the absence of natural disasters, are exemplary in their uniqueness, but also in the 'immediacy', scale and diversity of the solutions required by the vast scale of the destruction.
On the contrary, the reflective perspective opened up by Arnóth Ádám's article is one mediated by a restoration that has already been accomplished for several decades. Doctrines of intervention on historical monuments have come a long way since the restorations of the 1970s in Hungary. The author argues for unchanging the results of the interventions of that time, thus documenting the history of ideas about built heritage. What we have to contemplate here is a case of conservation restoration, a second-grade restoration.
Compared to this Hungarian epistemological case study, the examples of intervention presented by Köllő Miklós are drawn from his own recent architectural practice, mainly in the Gheorgheni Chair. The lessons, successes and failures recounted by him will sound quite familiar to anyone who has been involved in architectural restoration, but at the same time, precisely because of their recurrence, they will function as a revelatory for a systemic analysis of Romanian society in its relationship with built heritage.
Irina Popescu-Criveanu's essay deals with the most general issues of post-restoration through the most familiar monuments. She thus manages to formulate, through a remarkable feat of literary beauty, the most difficult aspects of the issue to grasp and communicate: the affective-memorial aspect, continuity and the strengthening of heritage values across generations. Placed at the center of the thematic dossier, this text of urban anthropology gives theoretical orientation to the whole thematic dossier.
The series of articles that follow fall into the category of case studies; apart from this unifying aspect, each example is unique, thus advocating, as a group, the importance of choosing the best solutions for each individual work, not letting routine and convenience impose easy solutions. The White House in Viscri, designed by Werner Desimpelaere and presented by Daniela Puia, in addition to being suitable to become the paradigm of vernacular architectural conservation, appears to be representative of the unique case of the Saxon villages in Transylvania.
The reconstruction of the block on the corner of Câmpineanu Street and Bălcescu Boulevard in Bucharest was designed by Georgeta Gabrea and is also presented by her. It is a special case because, as it is an entirely new building, it is not a question of restoration, but of reconstituting the urban ambience that the eclectic facade of the corner block has and continues to determine. The historic monument itself has vanished in its substance completely, but its memory (of a second degree: the memory of memory) is durably evoked by this carefully and sensitively executed design of style. The intervention is in the posterior juxtaposition to that in which restoration would still have been possible.
As in a multi-faceted antithesis, the case of the restoration of the Palace of Telephones on Calea Victoriei, commented on by Niels Auner, brings up countless alternatives to the extreme option of reconstruction. In spite of the scale of the consolidation work and its problematic start, which led to significant loss of heritage value and necessitated a peremptory intervention by the Union of Architects, the result of the intervention is nevertheless a historic monument saved in extremis.
The case study dedicated by Adrian Panaitescu to the Văcărești Monastery is also part of this context. Notoriously, the demolition of this valuable historical monument remains, among many other values destroyed in vain, a loss that posterity cannot easily resign itself to. The author not only presents the historical monument of yesteryear in an almost ritualistic reminiscence, but also reviews unsuccessful attempts to restore it. It is perhaps the most eloquent case to illustrate the barbarity with which it was restructured - restructured? - Romania's capital, a striking example of the indiscriminate urbanism that is still evident today - sometimes strident and arrogant, sometimes perfidious - even though this mode of intervention was already empirically disavowed and conceptually outdated in the 1980s. It is also an enormously obvious example of the fact that, once gone, the historic monument, with all its cultural values, is lost forever. Without it, restoration becomes impossible.
The case of the community museum in Chiojdu, a historical monument of 18th century peasant architecture, which has become the Center for Rural Architectural Culture of the Romanian Union of Architects through a commendable restoration-rehabilitation project, and has been transformed into a studio study by young architects Mihaela Pelteacu, Daniela Puia and Bogdan Mihăilă, concludes the thematic dossier in a well-tempered descrescendo, with an optimistic note: there is post-restoration life through community involvement.
As on other occasions, the central theme of this double issue also recurs in the components of the magazine's permanent columns, through a deliberate choice of contributions. Thus, "Project Notes" presents the projects of Anda Stefan for the restoration and conversion of an inter-war residence in Dumbrava Roșie Street in Bucharest and of the Oromulu Villa, a historical monument which together with the new office building constructed by DSBA form the Victoria Office Building complex. Nicholas Cantoni's graduation project, presented in the chapter 'Promises', makes a vigorous case for the hope that historic monuments will continue to benefit from restoration - and with it, a post-restoration existence. The cultural projects evoked: Loredana Brumă's "Cezara Mucenic archive" and Iosif Király's "Cezara Mucenic archive", discussing the always tense but unbreakable relationship between the literary representation of space and the reality of urban space; Mihaela Dumitru-Trancă's seminal essay, advocating the recovery of the spectacular, unknown heritage of the spectacular, unknown heritage of the stone crosses of the Bărăgan, are directly or indirectly linked to the central idea of the magazine.
At the end of any restoration intervention is a building, an urban fabric, a historic garden, a cultural landscape, imagined and realized in a more or less distant past, but updated through conceptual re-evaluation and economic, technical and functional revalorization. The post-restoration built environment is architecturally richer and more precious than an entirely new environment. To advocate restoration is therefore tantamount to supporting the common cause of a better living environment.

The functional adaptation, the public perception of the monument and its integration in the immutable contemporariness of habitation contribute to the success of the design enterprise while accounting for the primarily financial as well as professional, cultural and social investment meant to maintain the physical existence of antiquated structures. The research on successful interventions, to a greater extent than on failed attempts, may provide not only reference points for good practices, but also strong arguments encouraging further efforts for safeguarding the valuable built environment.
Yet the probably most exciting area of investigation in the context of post-restoration is the prospective one: how will the human world look like once the restoration practices, doctrines and customs (sensu stricto) will have been left behind? In another ^work5 we assumed that when the evolution of the concept of historical monument comes to end, built heritage conservation will align itself to the general building practices of the inhabited environment. However, this will not mean giving up on conservation, but a gradual and desirable disappearance of all disparities between the creation of new architecture and the preservation of old architecture. The approach of the designer and/or project will shift emphasis from invention to a contingency-free contextual adaptation based on the data relating to the theme and the location.
"The physical existence of historical monuments can be made to last long enough to sustain the re-establishment of a new cultural identity of the species, under the sign of spatial coordinates differing from the traditional ones. Nevertheless, the total number and density of great universal architectural monuments is relatively decreasing. The possibly integrated conservation of the built environment and the totality of activities subsumed to this concern will regain their full anthropological meaning only if, at the end of their evolution, they dissolve, by annihilating themselves, into the integrated system of the construction expression which alone is able to support the corporeality of our presence in time."⁶
The major drawback for the triumph of the anthropic environment is not the lack of material means, but ignorance.
The thematic dossier of Arhitectura double issue - the last one in 2017 and the first in 2018 - is quite timely dedicated to "post-restoration". Nevertheless, it cannot aim at eradicating ignorance in terms of built heritage and not even approaching a fairly large range of aspects related to this intricate matter. The current attempt limits itself to signalling and illustrating a topic as well as summoning to conjugate cognition and recognition efforts which might, in time, result in more adequate attitudes towards the patrimonial domain. Therefore, the following contributions do not act as a narration, nor do they serve as an introductory course into a post-restoration theory. The dossier rather amounts to a collection of fragments in the image and likeness of both the patrimonial domain and the segregated representation of the ^world7 we live in.
The research pieces included in the current issues highlight the various aspects of the domain in question: their themes range from urban renovation to the conservation of conservation, namely restoration interventions that have been exceeded in terms of doctrine, techniques and construction materials; the conservation of historic layers and immaterial heritage - the essence of the historical monument - the aporia of restoration. These are but a few of the innumerable possible aspects of the theme. Just as each historical monument is unique in and of itself, so are its restoration methods and the singular destinies of historical edifices and sites. The reflection on cultural heritage and the complex problems prompted by restoration and re-restoration will thus preserve its eternally dynamic character.

The text opening the thematic dossier is the article written by Françoise Choay and previously published in a former issue of Arhitectura. Its republication is primarily tributary to the topicality of the debate which it contributes to, that of addressing the very idea of restoration. The in-depth and nuanced review of the position assumed by the two emblematic figures of the legendary quarrel, Ruskin and Viollet-le-Duc, shed new light on their dialogue, revisited the topic and finally defied errors grounded on petrified thinking. Problematizing restoration quite wisely inaugurates the following series of contributions.
The works belonging to the Valencia-born couple of architects Fernando Vegas and Camilla Mileto excel in their contextual sensitivity. Even though their works do not qualify as actual restorations - pertaining to a rather hypothetical "meta-restoration" area -, their urban renewal interventions exceptionally combine new architecture and the conservation and integration of valuable old urban structures. The project included in the dossier is an exemplary illustration of a design principle rightly aspiring to the creation of the inhabited environment in an eventual post-restoration era.
The Italian architect and Professor Stefano D'Avino contributed to the thematic dossier with a view generated by the recent earthquakes in Umbria (2016) leading to the destruction of important parts of the old urban centers in the affected territory. Apparently dealing with "pre-restoration", the problem formulated in the context of an urgency which might diminish the speculators' appetite was set against the great series of seismic disasters occurring in Italy in the last half of the century and the experience gained from the ensuing restoration and reconstruction efforts. The interventions, different from the ones undertaken in the absence of natural calamities, acquire an exemplary character not only through their singularity, but also the immediacy, escalation and variety of solutions required by the profusion of the damages.
On the contrary, the reflexive perspective launched by Arnóth Ádám's article is mediated by a restoration carried out for several decades now. The historical monuments intervention doctrines have evolved considerably from the restoration works carried out in the 1970's in Hungary. The author advocates the immutability of the former intervention results with a view to substantiating the history of ideas in the built heritage domain. We are therefore dealing with a case of restoration conservation, a second-degree restoration.
In relation to this Hungarian epistemic case, the intervention examples presented by Köllő Miklós are selected from his own recent architectural practice mainly carried out in Gheorgheni district. The examples, successes and failures recounted by him will sound quite familiar to anyone who has been involved in architectural restoration yet at the same time it is their recurrency that will act as an eye-opening for a systemic analysis of the Romanian society and its relations to built heritage.
Irina Popescu-Criveanu's essay particularly approaches general post-restoration issues making use of some of the best known monuments. She thus manages to convey, with the help of a remarkable artful literary achievement, the most ineffable and incommunicable facets of the matter in question: the emotional-memorial aspect, the continuity and consolidation of patrimonial values over the course of generations. Placed at the core of the thematic dossier, this urban anthropology text offers a theoretical orientation to the entire content of the dossier.
The ensuing articles fall within the category of case studies; apart from this unifying aspect, each example is unique in and of itself as it collectively advocates the importance of choosing the best answers for each individual work, preventing routine and commodity from entailing potential offhand solutions. Apart from being suitable to act as a vernacular architecture conservation paradigm, The White House in Viscri, designed by Werner Desimpelaere and presented by Daniela Puia, is deemed representative for the singular case of Transylvanian Saxon villages.
The reconstruction of the apartment building located at the intersection of Câmpineanu Street and Bălcescu Avenue in Bucharest was designed and presented by Georgeta Gabrea and it represents a particular case: since it is an entirely new edifice, it is not a matter of restoring but recomposing the urban atmosphere that the eclectic façade of the corner building has been generating to the present day. The historical monument per se has effectively disappeared yet its second-degree memory is persistently evoked by the rigorously and delicately executed characteristic design. The intervention refers to the hypothesis subsequent to the one which would have allowed restoration.
As in a manifold antithesis, the restoration case of The Telephone Palace on Victoriiei Road analyzed by Niels Auner brings up numerous alternatives to the extreme option represented by reconstruction. Despite the extent of the consolidation works and their problematic start causing considerable heritage loss and calling for a conspicuous intervention from the Union of Romanian Architects, the result of the intervention is nonetheless a historical monument saved in extremis.
The same context serves as a background for the case study dedicated by Adrian Panaitescu to Văcărești Monastery. The notorious demolition of this inestimable historical monument continues to represent, among many other assets vainly destroyed, a loss that posterity finds difficult to cope with. The author presents the formerly historical monument in an almost ceremonial retrospection while reviewing the failed reconstruction attempts. It is probably the most eloquent case illustrating the brutality of the restructuring (or is it the destruction?) of the Romanian capital, an instance indicative of a blind, clamorous, arrogant and treacherous urban planning continuing into the present day, even though this intervention method was empirically disavowed and conceptually obsolete in the 1980s. In addition, it is the perfect example proving that once it disappears, the historical monument, along with its entire valuable cultural content, is forever lost. In its absence, restoration becomes impossible.
The case of the community museum in Chiojdu, an 18th-century rural architecture historical monument converted into the Rural Architectural Cultural Center belonging to The Union of Romanian Architects through a commendable restoration-rehabilitation endeavour and turned into a workshop case study by the young architects Mihaela Pelteacu, Daniela Puia and Bogdan Mihăilă, concludes the thematic dossier in a well-balanced descrescendo delivering an optimistic message: post-restoration life is made possible through community involvement.
As well as on other occasions, the central theme of the current double issue is present in the permanent headings of the magazine due to the deliberate selection of the contributions. Consequently, "Project Reports" features Anda Ștefan's restoration and conversion projects for an interwar residence situated on Dumbrava Roșie Street in Bucharest and Oromolu Villa, a historical monument building which, along with the new office block erected by DSBA, make up Victoria Office Building Complex. Nicholas Cantoni's diploma project included in "Promises" section firmly supports the hope that historical monuments will continue to benefit from restoration works in the future and enjoy a subsequent post-restoration existence. The cultural projects belonging to Loredana Brumă, who presented the "Cezara Mucenic Archive"; Iosif Király, who studied the constantly tensed yet unbreakable relationship between the literary representation of space and the reality of urban space; and the noteworthy essay written by Mihaela Dumitru-Trancă and advocating the recuperation of the spectacular and unknown heritage of the stone crosses in Bărăgan are (in)directly linked to the central idea of the magazine.
Each restoration intervention gives rise to an edifice, an urban tissue, a historical garden, a cultural landscape devised and executed in a more or less distant past yet updated by means of a conceptual reassessment and an economic, technical and functional recovery. The post-restoration built environment is richer from an architectural point of view as it holds more value than a newly-created environment. Advocating restoration is therefore equivalent to supporting the common cause of a better inhabited environment.

NOTE

1. Françoise Choay, The Allegory of Heritage, Simetria Publishing House, Bucharest, 1998.
2. Law No 422/2001 on the Protection of Historical Monuments, updated in 2013.
3. Cf., for example: Gheorghe Curinschi-Vorona, Arhitectură, urbanism, restaurare, București, Editura Tehnică, 1996.
4. Decree no. 442/1977. For the history of Romanian legislation on the preservation of cultural heritage, see: Cezara Mucenic, "Legislația privind monumentele istorice din România 1892-1992" in Revista Monumentelor Istorice, 1992, Number 2, Year LXI, pp. 14-20.
5. Timpul monumentului istoric, Bucharest, Paideia, 2003.
6. Ibid, chapter IV.
7. Dalibor Veselý, Architecture in the Age of Divided Representation, Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 2004.

NOTES

1. Françoise Choay, The Allegory of the Heritage, Simetria Publishing House, Bucharest, 1998; The Invention of the Historic Monument (Cambridge University Press, 2001)
2. Law no. 422/2001 on the Protection of Historical Monuments, updated in 2013.
3. For example, see: Gheorghe Curinschi-Vorona, Architectură, urbanism, restaurare, Bucharest, Technical Publishing House, 1996.
4. By decree no. 442/1977. For the history of the Romanian legislation on cultural heritage conservation, see "Cezara Mucenic, "Legislația privind monumentele istorice din România 1892-1992" [The Law on Historical Monuments in Romania 1892-1992] in Revista Monumentelor Istorice, 1992, no.2, LXI, p.14-20.
5. Timpul monumentului istoric, Bucharest, Paideia, 2003.
6. Ibid, chapter IV.
7. Dalibor Veselý, Architecture in the Age of Divided Representation, Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press, 2004.