The conservation of Modern architectures represents, at the same time, both theoretical and technical issues. Probably the first theme to consider is the relationship between the original meanings of "modern architecture" and the values today acknowledged to these sites or buildings. During the period between the two world wars the "new Modern Movement cities" (or the newest part of the cities) were conceived as the result of a collective and social disposition (Taut, 1929); the modern house also lived strictly connected to its time and its relationship with surrounding buildings, in contexts now deeply changed. If the Futurist architecture acknowledges the "caducity" and the "transience" of the buildings as one of its fundamental features (Sant’Elia, 1914), it's almost proved that buildings of Modern Movement badly responded to the "proof of the time": fragile surfaces and inefficient designed structures (based on experimental solutions) led the conservation/restoration field to deal with the issue of the "autenticity" in opposition to the "seriality" of the industrial products. In the last 20 years, the conservation of modern architectures was characterized by conflicting views and experiences: from the reproduction/reconstruction goals that attempt to recover the "original intentions" of the architect (the case of ville Savoye or, at the urban scale, the restoration of the Weissenhof Siedlung, are explicative case-studies), to the less investigated conservative goals understanding also the "industrial materiality" as the manifestation of historical, artistic and cultural meanings of the monument. Therefore, the relevance of the original design seems to prevail against the "semantics strength" of the stratifications of the time. Why, in the field of conservation of modern buildings, "the lost of the patina" is considered acceptable? And what instead could be the outcome of a "Brandian approach" for the conservation of modern surfaces?
«To create is divine, to reproduce is human». Is an approach based on Cesare Brandi’s possible for modern surfaces?
DI RESTA, SARA
2013-01-01
Abstract
The conservation of Modern architectures represents, at the same time, both theoretical and technical issues. Probably the first theme to consider is the relationship between the original meanings of "modern architecture" and the values today acknowledged to these sites or buildings. During the period between the two world wars the "new Modern Movement cities" (or the newest part of the cities) were conceived as the result of a collective and social disposition (Taut, 1929); the modern house also lived strictly connected to its time and its relationship with surrounding buildings, in contexts now deeply changed. If the Futurist architecture acknowledges the "caducity" and the "transience" of the buildings as one of its fundamental features (Sant’Elia, 1914), it's almost proved that buildings of Modern Movement badly responded to the "proof of the time": fragile surfaces and inefficient designed structures (based on experimental solutions) led the conservation/restoration field to deal with the issue of the "autenticity" in opposition to the "seriality" of the industrial products. In the last 20 years, the conservation of modern architectures was characterized by conflicting views and experiences: from the reproduction/reconstruction goals that attempt to recover the "original intentions" of the architect (the case of ville Savoye or, at the urban scale, the restoration of the Weissenhof Siedlung, are explicative case-studies), to the less investigated conservative goals understanding also the "industrial materiality" as the manifestation of historical, artistic and cultural meanings of the monument. Therefore, the relevance of the original design seems to prevail against the "semantics strength" of the stratifications of the time. Why, in the field of conservation of modern buildings, "the lost of the patina" is considered acceptable? And what instead could be the outcome of a "Brandian approach" for the conservation of modern surfaces?
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