TEORIA E STORIA DEL RESTAURO

The Theory and History of Restoration course aims to introduce students to the topics of restoration and provide them with the cultural foundations for developing a critical spirit that will serve as a guide in their continued education and future professional activities in the field of historic building restoration.

The main objective of the course is to provide knowledge of the theories and practices of intervention on existing buildings, analysed from a historical perspective. The course therefore offers a summary of the definition and cultural and methodological evolution of the discipline, illustrating the main trends in architectural restoration, with particular attention to developments in the 19th and 20th centuries, up to the present day. Particular emphasis is placed on the ways in which each historical period has related to its own past, highlighting the links between cultural transformations, architectural history, construction techniques, restoration sites and operational methodologies, in order to understand contemporary trends and current motivations for the conservation of historical heritage.

The course is preparatory to the fourth-year Restoration Workshop. It aims to develop a critical awareness that allows students to understand and respect the evidence of the past and approach restoration projects in a culturally and technically informed manner.

In line with the Sustainable Development Goals of Agenda 2030 – in particular Goal 11 “Sustainable cities and communities” and Goal 4 “Quality education” – the course promotes the protection and enhancement of cultural heritage as a strategic resource for the environmental, social and economic sustainability of communities. The course encourages a vision of restoration as a responsible and sustainable practice, aimed at consciously transmitting cultural values to future generations.

There are no prerequisites specified in the teaching regulations.

However, knowledge of the fundamentals of architectural history, historical technologies and the static behaviour of buildings is considered important.

1. The idea of Restoration

2. Restoration before Restoration

3. Neoclassicism and the second half of the eighteenth century

4. The modern idea of Restoration

5. The conservation attitudes and the English approach

6. Stylistic Restoration in Italy and its “objective version” of Historic Restoration

7. The Italian school. The “intermediate theory”

8. Middle-European approach to Conservation

9. WWII post-war and the Second half of the twentieth century

10. The different positions in the contemporary debate

Bibliography:

1. GLENDINNING, Miles, The Conservation Movement: A History of Architectural Preservation, Antiquity to Modernity, London, Routledge, 2013 or, as an alternative,
2. JOKILEHTO, Jukka, A History of Architectural Conservation, London, Routledge, (2007) 20172.

Supplementary books:

3. STANLEY PRICE, Nicholas, TALLEY, Mansfield Kirby Jr., MELUCCO VACCARO, Alessandra (Eds.), Historical and Philosophical Issues in the Conservation of Cultural Heritage, Los Angeles, The Getty Conservation Institute, 1996.