Professional Documents
Culture Documents
2024 15:26 Alois Riegl and the Modern Cult of the Monument - ERA Architects
fr
stories
Will and Michael teamed up to present a very brief introduction to the writings of Alois Riegl at
Friday Social Hour this week.
Alois Riegl (1858-1905) was an Austrian art-historian and philosopher. In 1903 he published (in
German) a seminal article titled The Modern Cult of the Monument: Its Character and Its
Origin, outlining the competing values to be considered when approaching the preservation
and/or conservation of historic structures. It is important to note that this article was only
translated into English in 1982, in support of the criticism of the appropriation of historical
forms and motifs in what has become known as the ‘postmodernist’ phase of architecture.
https://www.eraarch.ca/2011/alois-riegl-and-the-modern-cult-of-the-monument/ 1/8
12.02.2024 15:26 Alois Riegl and the Modern Cult of the Monument - ERA Architects
Outwardly these three classes of monuments can be thought of as contained within one
another, while the scope of their memory-value widens.
To the class of intentional monuments belong only those works which recall a specific
moment or complex or complex of moments from the past.
The class of historical monuments is enlarged to include those which still refer to a particular
moment, but the choice of that moment is left to our subjective preference.
Finally, Riegl argus that the category of monuments of age-value embraces every artifact
without regard to its original significance and purpose, as long as it reveals the passage of a
considerable period of time.
Intentional monuments
https://www.eraarch.ca/2011/alois-riegl-and-the-modern-cult-of-the-monument/ 2/8
12.02.2024 15:26 Alois Riegl and the Modern Cult of the Monument - ERA Architects
All of antiquity and the Middle Ages knew only intentional monuments
Age-value monuments
Nineteenth century laws were all tailored to the notion that the unintentional
monument possessed only a historical value: with the rise of age-value, however,
these laws became inadequate.
The Relationship Between Present Day Values and the Cult of Monuments
https://www.eraarch.ca/2011/alois-riegl-and-the-modern-cult-of-the-monument/ 3/8
12.02.2024 15:26 Alois Riegl and the Modern Cult of the Monument - ERA Architects
b) Art-Value – modern art-value shares with that of earlier periods the notion that every
work of art needs to be a discrete entity which reveals no decay of shape or color.
Newness-value – Generally only new and whole things tend to be considered beautiful,
and faded are thought to be ugly. Humans innately value youth over age. Newness-value
has always been identified with art in the eyes of the masses, while relative art value can
only be appreciated by the aesthetically educated modern person.
Riegl also developed the concept of the “Kunstwollen”, which may be loosely defined at the
collective will-to-art. It is deeper than fashion, and refers to the shared, intrinsic societal belief
structure as it is connected to artistic and cultural production. Note the similarity between the
“Kunstwollen” and Freud’s idea of the collective unconscious, which was being developed
about the same time.
Riegl argued that our view of history was forever shifting, since it is always filtered through the
lens of the “Kunstwollen”, or our immediate cultural belief system, which is itself constantly
shifting. As Kurt Forster describes:
The “Kunstwollen” of our epoch profoundly determines the perception of the past: there is
no objective past … but only a continual refraction of the absent in the memory of the
present.
https://www.eraarch.ca/2011/alois-riegl-and-the-modern-cult-of-the-monument/ 4/8
12.02.2024 15:26 Alois Riegl and the Modern Cult of the Monument - ERA Architects
Reigl argues that relative art-value (as filtered through the “Kunstwollen”) is inherently
opposed to age-value. This may seem incongruous, but he argues that the relativity of historic
https://www.eraarch.ca/2011/alois-riegl-and-the-modern-cult-of-the-monument/ 5/8
12.02.2024 15:26 Alois Riegl and the Modern Cult of the Monument - ERA Architects
Also of interest is how this classification of values treats the idea of the “whole”, or the integral
work. Historical-value maintains that in order to be culturally meaningful a work must be
returned to it’s absolute, original condition – a perfect, complete restoration. Age-value
embraces the indications of decay and entropic effects of natural process of destruction. and
argues for the protection and preservation of this patina, and the incomplete, fragmentary
ruin which expresses the passage of time. This leads to an explicit recognition of the value of
the fragment, which in turn became a fundamental construct of modern critical thought – as
explored and expanded by Warberg, Benjamin, Adorno, etc. and through the collage-art of
Picasso, and into multiple, shifting view-points of cubism, etc.
https://www.eraarch.ca/2011/alois-riegl-and-the-modern-cult-of-the-monument/ 6/8
12.02.2024 15:26 Alois Riegl and the Modern Cult of the Monument - ERA Architects
related projects
https://www.eraarch.ca/2011/alois-riegl-and-the-modern-cult-of-the-monument/ 7/8
12.02.2024 15:26 Alois Riegl and the Modern Cult of the Monument - ERA Architects
https://www.eraarch.ca/2011/alois-riegl-and-the-modern-cult-of-the-monument/ 8/8