Műemlék-helyreállítások tegnap, ma, holnap (A 27. Egri Nyári Egyetem előadásai 1997 Eger, 1997)

Előadások - The phylosophy of monument restoration Debate – moderator: András ROMÁN

Venice Charta. I could describe different words and articles which prove that it is Euro-centric, that it is only concerned with monuments, that it works for stone, but not so well for wooden buildings, that its primary focus is to répare buildings, not to maintain them. However, in spite of the fact, that it is easy to criticize the Charta, I think it is extremely important in the conservation world, because it has been a unifying force for our debates for 33 years. It has given us a common language even to disagree with and that is a fundamental contribution to the field of conservation. And as long as, in practice, we use it as a point of departure for modern debates, I think it will always have validity. András, I am trying to give shorter answers. András Román Let me add my opinion again. Probably it is a matter of generations. I also agree that the Venice Charta is still valid. And I will keep it valid until somebody proves it not to be valid. I have never met this kind of proof yet. I agree it is not precise in everything. When Dezső Dercsényi came home from Venice in 1964, he told us that the Venice Charta was written with certain improvisation. Pierro Gazzola and Reymond Lemaire did not have the complete text of the Charta when they arrived to Venice, they composed the complete Venice Charta in one or two nights. Obviously, in this quick work some inaccuracy, some inaccurate definitons showed up. Let me quote one of these. The Venice Charta says that historic qartcrs should be dealt with the same way as separate monuments. This is half true and half false. It is true, because a group of historic monuments is also a monument, but it has a very important social value, which separate ruins do not have. Obviously, there are more and different requirements in restorations of human dwellings, of groups of monuments, which are not detailed enough in the Charta. Altogether, there are inaccuracies but I think these are present in the Charta from the beginning. These are not obsolete, these are not out of date, it is simpy the case that it is a human product with human mistakes in it, I think. DO YOU AGREE, THAT MAIN CRITERIUM OF PROFESSIONAL RESTORATION IS AUTHENTICITY? Tamás Fejérdy Authenticity is hard to comprehend as value. Authenticity is a kind of instrument to me, what more it is a measuring istrument. It is a kind of lacmus paper, an indicator which shows that something is really true and right, and whether it meets the requirements of the value conservator and preserve relations which are of great importance. And at this point I have to agree with Herb is saying that it is of crucial importance to always go back to the values. In this relations I think authenticity is very important indeed. I might not be right but authenticity got no definition in the Venice Charta not only because its composers agreed on the fact that things should be done authenticity but they didn't give a definition for it because these things are not easy to define in a way that everyone could accept it. Let me go back to a circumstance at the conference in Nara. Those present were informed by a considerable procent of the rather active participants that the word authenticity does not exist in their native language. Great number of people mentioned this and not only people from islamic countries but e. g. a Finn colleague of mine was talking about this. So as not to talk around the subject, I find authenticity very