A műemlékek sokszínűsége (A 28. Egri Nyári Egyetem előadásai 1998 Eger, 1998)

Előadások / Presentations - MEZŐS Tamás: What in german is known as „Bodendenkmalschutz”

villa farm from being displayed, and it is therefore marked out by concrete slabs 2 m above the original remains. From an architectural point of view I find this arrangement devoid of all value. This form of presentation is obviously at odds with the principles of conservation. Here, too, the problem goes beyond the field of pure monumental conservation. It is seldom that one architectural concept is applicable across the whole area of a large interconnected mined site. In Aquincum the harmonious vertical elements give rise to a balanced overall view, but a sense of the real space is missing from the whole. It was in vain that plans were drawn up to display a few buildings on a large scale, in a way that would convey the sense of space. The authority was too timid to give its permission for an architect's proposal which was logical, took the needs of the public into account, and also met the criteria of archaeological authenticity. This despite the fact that the appropriateness of such an approach had already been proven by a host of archaeological parks constructed in Western Europe several decades previously, as well as by the architecturally poorer Gorsium, built about the same time. And the prototype was obviously the display of the Forum Romanum in Rome, built in the 1930s. The traces of remains uncovered by archaeological means are practically flat, only the outline of former buildings. Even the best-preserved walls only extend up to the shoulder of the vaulting or the line of the ceiling. There are rare examples where, although history has also transposed it on to a plane, the process of destruction has knocked down the building like a „pack of cards" and the third dimension has thus been faithfully preserved in the toppled frontage. For almost 100 years, since the appearance of Riegl's Later Roman Crafts (1902), it has been a fact accepted in principle that architecture is the art of defining space. It is clearly the main task of monumental conservation to do all it can to display and convey faithfully former interiors and city areas. The Collegium Iuventutis' peristyled court in Aquincum has already been mentioned, but the example for every display is the restoration of the Forum Romanum in Rome in the 1920s, where the impressions given by comer anastyle of the Temple of Vespasian or the colonnade along the front of the Temple of Antonius and Faustina remain models to be aspired to even now. In my experience these attempts at defining spaces are useful even if they do not give rise to real architectural spaces. In our case, most displays of Roman relics give no opportunity for such reconstructions, because there are few analogues, and the archaeological finds are too uncertain to underpin theories from which credible reconstructions could be produced. For a model of outdoor display of ruins we can look again to the Forum in Rome. In order to display each item of architecture to the public, pieces of the main entablature of the Basilica Aemilia were placed at headheight, or hardly any higher, between the columns erected in anastyle form in their original locations. I understand the intention behind this arrangement. I can accept that the beautiful carving of the entablature and the stonemason's bravura achievement can and must be presented to the public close up. But it is rather more doubtful whether this should be done at the original site, when it renders the original configuration of the architectural elements uncertain. An architect can be accused of committing an error of interpretation if he degrades part of a building, in its original environment, to the status of a museum exhibit. The demand for visual presentation of the ancient environment was not only caused by the rising fashion of travel which spread after the Second World War. Emperor William initiated at his own expense reconstruction of Saalburg Castrum discovered along the Limes near Frankfurt. The edifice which greets visitors l ..lay is the result of architectural, architectural-historical, structural and technical work covering every detail with Germanic thoroughness. What has remained a sensational display for the general public was the centre of a heated debate among scholars at the time. There have been many who have called the authenticity of the restoration into question then and since. But the best judgement of the spectacle is that the Castrum is visited by several hundred thousand people every year. The ample and carefully-compiled information, however,