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

Előadások - Herb STOVEL: Authenticity, as it he Nara Document and as relates to the restoration of historic monuments

HERB STOVEL AUTHENTICITY, AS IT HAS RECENTLY BEEN UNDERSTOOD AND DESCRIBED IN THE NARA DOCUMENT AND AS RELATES TO THE RESTORATION OF HISTORIC MONUMENTS Authenticity is a very large subject. I would have no hope of trying to describe all aspects relating to authenticity, relating to this important conservational subject. But my purpose, what I hope I can provide a framework which we can use to look at different case studies, to look at different conservation actions, to look at different conservation proposals and to begin to judge them from an authenticity prospective on a consistent basis. I would like to give you an overview in five general points. I want first of all explain, why in the last five years has authenticity become a key subject in the conservational world, why now we are discussing this point. Secondly I wish to begin to touch the complexity of the debate, which has emergd in the past five years. And to show the widely different prospectives from which this subject now has been looked at in different cultures and in different regions of the world. I wish thirdly to look at the Nara Dokument itself to explain what it is, what it consists of, what importances it has and how perhaps it can be useful in the conservational field. And fourthly, and this is to return to my purpose, I wish to show, how the Nara Document can provide a kind of modern framework for authenticity analysis and decision making. And lastly, I would like to conclude by trying to summarize the situation today; what are the key issues, what ere the primary issues coming to primary debate in this year and perhaps in the years to come. 1. Why now, why in the last few years have we begun to discuss authenticity more seriously than ever before? We must acknowledge that this is a recent preoccupation, a recent passion. The word - authenticity does not appear in any article of the Venice Charter. It does, however, appear in the preamble to the Venice Charter in 1964. And there, the principle author of that document, prof. Reymond Lemaire talks about the obligation of conservators to preserve our heritage in the richness of its authenticity for the benefit of future generations. That is the only reference to authenticity in that extremely important document. And I recalled asking the author, Reymond Lemaire why was not this discussed, why was not this concept a problem in 1964? His answer was very simple. He said, that those, discussing conservation at that time, came from common backgrounds, common cultures, and therefore they all used the words in the same way, and there was no need for a debate. This is no longer true, because we are much more concerned with trying to develop and understand conservation in a global sence around the world. There has always been conservation activity in different sections of the world, in Japan, or Asia, or Europe, or the Americas or Africa, but what has changed, is the seriousness of the effort we bring to discuss conservation in those different cultures, in those different regions in a global framework, in a single global framework. One single event provoked the realization that something must be done to strengthen this global framework for discussing conservation in different parts of the world. And this single event was the decision of Japan to join the World Heritage Convention in 1992, five years ago. And when Japan joined the convendion, they expressed many doubts about judgements that there would be made about their