Heritage significance & Heritage values

Part 1 - 19th century Restoration / Anti-restoration movements

Bosse Lagerqvist, Department of Conservation
 Restoration movement
Restore the unity of style
Restore into the style the object belongs to
Precise knowledge about the style in question
Critical review of earlier changes/restorations
Best materials and methods
The design of style is more important than the actual history
of the object
Viollet le Duc
Helgo Zetterwall
George Gilbert Scott

Eugène Viollet-le-Duc
‘The best of all ways of preserving a building is to find a use for it, and then to
satisfy so well the needs dictated by that use that there will never be any further
need to make any further changes in the building’
”To restore a building is not the same as to maintain, repair or rebuild it. It is
instead to restore it into a state that does not need to have existed at any given
time.” Carcasonne, Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, 1850s
 Distancing from the antiquity as an ideal Restoration movement
Gothic – vernacular
Eugène Viollet-le-Duc
‘True’ materials (brick, stone, iron,
Château de Pierrefonds,
timber)
Plan by Viollet-le-Duc,
Embracing the possibilities provided by
1857

modern technology

Château de Pierrefonds,
Château deDrawing
Pierrefonds today
by Viollet-le-Duc,
1857

Craft
’True’ materials
Rejecting modern technology
Industrialism to be counteracted
(social inequality,
pollution)
Anti-restoration movement
It is impossible to raise the dead. Take proper care of
your monuments, and you will not need to restore
them
Its evil day will come at last but let it come declaredly
and openly and let no dishonouring substitutes
deprive it of its funeral offices of memory.
John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture
Each restoration results in falsification, in a forgery
by removal of elements that otherwise could be
historical documents.
Historic authenticity to be prioritised, buildings
should be repaired instead of restored, to secure
their function as heritage.
Sign of age essential to a building
Unavoidable interventions to be performed in
contemporary style and with artistic quality
William Morris; Society for the
protection of ancient buildings, 1877
William Morris Anti-restoration movement
The negative effects of
industrialism: Seven Lamps of Architecture enlarged by
In the 1880s, committed Ruskin to the three-volume Stones of
revolutionary activist Venice, 1851-53
To prove that Venetian architecture represented
…while at the same the principles of the Seven Lamps of Architecture
time designing textiles

Strawberry thief, 1883

 Critique of the movements
Camillo Boito, critical to Viollet-le-Duc and Ruskin:
How to reconcile the conflicting theories of restoration.
III Conference of Architects and Civil Engineers of Rome, 1883:
Prima Carta del Restauro
1. The differentiation of style between new and old parts of a building.
2. The differentiation in building materials between the new and the old.
3. Refraining from designing moldings and decorative elements in new fabric
placed in a historical building.
4. Exhibition in a nearby place of any material parts of a historical building that
were removed during the process of restoration.
5. Inscription of the date (or a conventional symbol) on new fabric in a historical
building.
6. Descriptive panel of the restoration work done attached to the monument.
7. Registration and description with photographs of the different phases of
restoration. This register should remain in the monument or in a nearby public
place. This requirement may be substituted by publication of this material.
 Critique of the movements

Santa Maria del Fiore, Firenze. Mapping made by

Camillo Boito in connection with formulation of a
competition for restoration assignment, 1860s

The Medieval Porta Ticinese in Milano

Boito, 1856-58
Part 1 - 19th century Restoration / Anti-restoration movements

- Very condensed overview

- 19th century debates and practices

- 20th century
Heritage significance & Heritage values
Part 2 – Understanding the movements, the role of values and
valuation
Bosse Lagerqvist, Department of Conservation
Alois Riegl, Vienna 1900: Values

Newness value Restoration

Historic value movement

A conflict of values
Anti-restoration
Age value
movement

1858-1905
Art historian, Vienna
Alois Riegl, Vienna 1900: Values

Unintentional monuments
Comemorative values:
Age value: Premature ageing as offensive
as new additions in an old structure
The object should age on its own
conditions
Age value could come in conflict with
preservation motives

Historic The perceived original appearance are

value: more important than the tracks of time

Château de Pierrefonds
Budapest
 Alois Riegl, Vienna 1900: Values
Unintentional monuments
Operative value:
Art value: All monuments have an art value through their relation with
contemporary aesthetic ideals (“kunstwollen”)
- Newness value – the new, modern
- Relative art value – the perceived difference, historic and present
aesthetic ideals

Museum of modern art,

Kiasma, Helsinki Haga Nygata, Gothenburg
 Alois Riegl, Vienna 1900: Values

All human will is directed toward a satisfactory shaping of man's relationship to

the world, within and beyond the individual. The plastic Kunstwollen regulates
man's relationship to the sensibly perceptible appearance of things.
Art expresses the way man wants to see things shaped or colored, just as the
poetic Kunstwollen expresses the way man wants to imagine them. Man is not
only a passive, sensory recipient, but also a desiring, active being who wishes to
interpret the world in such a way (varying from one people, region, or epoch to
another) that it most clearly and obligingly meets his desires. The character of this
will is contained in what we call the worldview (again in the broadest sense): in
religion, philosophy, science, even statecraft and law
Tr. C.S. Wood: The Vienna School reader: politics and art historical method in the 1930s (New York, 2000)
Alois Riegl, Vienna 1900: Values

Intentional monuments

The relative art value

can become politically/
societally impossible
Alois Riegl, Vienna 1900: Values
Negative Relative art value
Rejection, destruction
Underpins possible development of
age value due to negative
apprehensions of utility values and
Value news values
Nominal
value

Destruction Time
Alois Riegl, Vienna 1900: Values
Positive Relative art value Negative Relative art value
Preservation Rejection, destruction
Counteracts development of age value Underpins possible development of
age value due to negative
apprehensions of utility values and
Value
Gentrification news values
Nominal
value
Operative value:
Utility The preserved structure
value: is a resource for different
stakeholders
Resources (conservation)
or a specific
objective
Time
Valuations summarized
Collectively oriented
Stakeholder needs:
Stakeholder needs: Heritage as a unifying
Heritage as a developable resource for local
symbol
economies and community empowerment

Monumental properties and qualities

Object/site provides tangible and intangible
to be enhanced
facilities that have instrumental capacities
to be reused
The formation of Emotionally based
Knowledge based
Heritage
Properties and qualities perceived as Aesthetic/ historic qualities and/or possibilities that
historic reference and evidence need to be enables participation to be developed or designed
identified and conserved

Stakeholder needs: Stakeholder needs:

Heritage as a field of academic study and Heritage as a developable resource for
research individual meaning making
Individually oriented
Valuation & the practice

• What are the historic properties and qualities, how could they be described?
• Who are the stakeholders, what are their interests/valuations, which
engagements for continued use are present, and which
opportunities/possibilities for continued use are present, i.e. what cultural
values are possible to define?
• What history/historic process could be narrated and why, i.e. what kind of
heritage or memory could be produced, and what kind of spatial and
material design problems need to be solved – what are the objctives and
goals for the heritage process?

UNIVERSITY OF GOTHENBURG
Heritage significance & Heritage values
Part 3 – Conservation defined, the base for heritage
practice
Bosse Lagerqvist, Department of Conservation
 The formal context for heritage
Material properties, from
artefacts to landscapes

Social structures: Heritage Formal societal bodies

Meanings & values of and organisations:
material properties; Handling of properties
Intangible phenomena

The professional practice:

Heritage as a ‘process’ rather than an ‘object

Sir Bernard Feilden:

(Integrated) Conservation may be defined as the dynamic
management of change in order to reduce the rate of decay.
/…/
Conservation requires comprehensive socio-economic, legal and
cultural planning, integrated at all levels.
(Air Pollution and Conservation, Safeguarding Our Architectural Heritage, 1986)
 Decay
External causes of decay. The sun produces light with ultrviolet and heat radiation
Climatic causes Biological and botanical causes Natural disasters
Seasonal temperature changes Animals Earthquakes
Daily temperature changes Birds Tidal waves
Precipitation of rain and snow Insects Floods
Ice and frost Trees and plants Avalanches
Fungi, moulds, lichens Volcanic eruptions
Exeptional winds
Fire
Internal causes of decay Freezing

Humidity Contaminated air Neglect

Sibiu, Romania
 Decay

Saint Malo at the end of WWII

Internal causes of decay District Annedal, Gothenburg, 1970s
Student housing, Lancaster, UK

Sibiu, Romania
Man-made causes of decay

Neglect of preventive Wars Environmental Vandalism and arson

Purposeful alteration pollution Theft
Conservation/maintenance
Fashion Water abstraction Stupidity
 Integrated Conservation – The heritage area
More complex heritage dynamics

Socio-cultural processes
that adapt, create, cultivate, experiment, change, problematize, define the following:
Heritage practices based on
Integrated conservation, Stewardship, preservation, circular economy, recycling
constantly performed in the of principal significance for:
realms of complex heritage
Natural landscapes
dynamics a global level encompassing:

Cultural landscapes
that includes:

Cities and built environments

which consist of:

Buildings and other spatial structures

constituting the frames for:

Artefacts
e.g. furniture, arts objects, utility goods,
Increased resilience potential etc.
associated with each element of
the model
Less complex heritage dynamics
 The bigger picture: Paradigms and perspectives
Three contributions to the international on how to address heritage processes
discussion on how to define principle
perspectives or paradigms to understand the
shifting nature of practice
Sully, D. (2013) Conservation Theory and Practice.
Materials, Values, and People in Heritage Conservation.
In: Volume IV: Practice. (Edited by Conal McCarthy) The
International Handbooks of Museum Studies,oFirst from
sEdition.
s p ec ific bject
General Editors: Sharon Macdonald t
rotecand Helen Rees
b ject ive is to p
Leahy. past and the o
. etween
p a r a d ig m shifts ive on the d ialogue
b
p le t e s p e ct e a s a e
t d u e to incom t ra d it io nal per t e m p o rary us ’s u s e and valu
coexis ury, a Ashworth, n
s, coG. (2011). Preservation,inConservation peop le and
t a p p roaches, , la t e 1 9th cent s p ec ific object t o (o rd ary)
n h t s
3 differe a tion par
adigm
t s togethe
r wit Heritage: Approaches
ift from e
perthe Past in the Present through
xto
re se rv . m e n t , a s h
The p reats viron nothe eren Environment. In: Asian Anthropology , 10(1), 1-18.
t inhBuilt
ng e o r other th digm, 1960s, en t ed a n d
cha para truc
e c o n s ervation als va lu e s are cons
Th ion ura l
/profess igm, 1980s, cult Janssen, J., Luiten, E., Renes, H., & Stegmeijer, E. (2017).
experts e p a ra d
The herit
ag Heritage as sector, factor and vector: conceptualizing the
e m a in s .
r shifting relationship between heritage management and
historic
spatial planning. In: European Planning Studies, 25(9),
1654-1672.

UNIVERSITY
Photo: Bosse Lagerqvist OF GOTHENBURG
 Ashworth Preservation paradigm Conservation paradigm Heritage paradigm
Janssen et al. Sector Factor Vector
Sully Materials-based Values-based Peoples-based
conservation conservation conservation

Laurajane Smith (2006) GOAL Object Ensemble Message

The uses of heritage.

Monument Contributer to the quality To provide spatial planning
of a place with historical narratives
Conservation produce the 'true' Conservation produce the Conservation produce a
object 'expected' object 'plausible' object

”The Authorized
JUSTIFICATION Keep Adaptive reuse Use
Protect Present-day needs in area Personal memories, genealogical
development links and scientific reconstructions
Heritage Discourse” of historical events impart a
narrative structure to the past
Athens Charter 1931 Burra Charter 1979 Conv. for the Safeguarding
Venice Charter 1964 Document on autenticity 1994 of the Intangible Cultural
World Heritage Conv. 1972 Heritage 2003
FOCUS Real Given Imagined
The real monument as Support of conomic value Growing involvment leading to
a symbolic backdrop to and increase of cultural co-creation of heritage values
modern society quality
Welfare of material heritage, Welfare of material heritage, Welfare of contemporary
precedence over contemporary balanced with contemporary communities, precedencce over
needs of people needs of stakeholders material heritage
AUTHENTICITY Object Compromise Experience
Monment Compromise The narratives
Cultural significance based on Cultural significance guided by Culturl significance determined
expert values expert values, incl stakeholder by community values
values
ACTORS Experts Policy makers Users
Experts A broader arrey of Trans-disciplinary,
professional experts academic / non-academic,
locals / professionals
Top-down decision-making by Top-down decision-making by Community-led decision-making,
experts experts with stakeholder people-up seeking locally
participation and dialogue appropriate solutions
UNIVERSITY OF GOTHENBURG
 Looking at built environments:
The three paradigms/perspectives need to be combined
- Built environments cannot be turned into museums although some properties need to preserved
- Historically grounded skills, traditions, technical constructions and functionalities of and within the built environment
represent cultural and historical properties to be used and adapted for modern needs
- Heritage as a process integrated with sustainable development, needs to rely on stakeholder management promoting
inclusiveness, engagement, opportunities, and creativity

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Photo: Bosse Lagerqvist OF GOTHENBURG