Ruin and modern restoration

Abstract

The relationship between ruin and architecture is a recurring theme in Western culture, starting from the restoration theories of the 19th century. According to the philosopher Ortega y Gasset, the ruins are a kind of aphrodisiac for architects. Sites, ruins and antiquities contain varying degrees of awareness of the passage of the time with respect to architecture. In Europe, the increasingly restrictive regulations on heritage and the importance given to archaeological remains in our culture, reduce the intervention on existing elements to more cleaning procedures or the replacement of damaged items. The interventions thresholds on historical buildings have reached such a level that some restoration works are close to artistic installations rather than scientific and disciplinary restorations, with specific interventions aimed at increasing the values of the building through proposals barely interventionist based on specific relationships between elements. Architecture that explains history through interventions that make it difficult to understand where the intervention begins, a dichotomy that is diluted in the continuity of the present time with the past time.