A NOTION OF RESTORATION BORN OF MEMORY

by Enrico Tantucci

Identity, memory, choice and project. These are some of the necessary key words to interpret the new Charter on conservation drafted in Cracow and signed by the representatives of European and non-European countries. It comes thirty six years after the Charter of Venice, and it is aimed more at integrating it than erasing it. Among its demiurges there is once again a Venetian: Prof. Giuseppe Cristinelli, vice president of the Kraków 2000 committee which a few years ago launched the initiative of a new reference document for Superintendences, curators, art historians, but above all for the laymen who are interested in defending their own cultural heritage and therefore their own memory. “Over the last thirty years” says Prof. Cristinelli, “the concept of conservation has radically changed and if history and aesthetics were the main references for the Charter of Venice, attention is now focused on the concept of memory, the a priori form which is common to all men and which adds value to the traces of the past allowing for the identification of what is now meant by cultural heritage. Memory goes beyond the relationship between aesthetics and documentation, it implies a choice: it is the operation that enables us to distinguish what is worth preserving from what can be forgotten. You can’t preserve everything without distinction, the result would only be an act of piling up, as Massimo Cacciari rightly said during the preliminary works for the Kraków Conference. Moreover heritage can change. It must be conserved because what we don’t understand today, could be understood in the future by someone else. For instance, just think about the almost negative light in which Francesco Borromini’s architecture was seen in the mid 19th century and how today he is acclaimed as a genius by contemporary historians. But how far can we go in the restoration or cleaning of a monument? What are the boundaries within which artistic and historic heritage remains true to itself? `There are no formulas,` insists Prof. Cristinelli, “and abiding by the rules is not sufficient. One must have trust in the human principle of identification of things. A choice must be made, and such a choice leads to the concept of project, because conservation is no longer a technique, but an aim”. The conservation plan, a new term applied to restoration, must come before the intervention techniques, which are the means to obtain the desired result.
“The use, not the abuse, becomes fundamental,” insists Prof. Cristinelli, “because it is through use that an artistic or historic monument maintains part of its primary functions. The concepts of restoration and conservation are therefore not antithetical, nor mutually exclusive, because the first is at the service of the second.”