Wprowadzenie

• Authors: Kowalczyk Jerzy

Title variants

EN

INTRODUCTION

• Languages of publication: PL EN

Abstracts

EN

This issue of „Ochrona Zabytkow” contains seven articles which are the outcome of the second scientific-conservation conference held by the Association of Conservators o f Historical Monuments and entitled: „Reconstruction in Conservation”; the conference took place in Radzikow near Warsaw on 25-26 October 1990. The session presented many more p ap e rs than those published; some of the authors had not p rep a red their articles for publication. Nonetheless, the contributions p ro p o sed below concern a great variety of interesting topics: from reflections on reconstruction in the light of the development of conservation doctrines, to reconstructions o f architectonic mo n u ments, gardens and mobile monuments. Most attention was devoted to the reconstruction of monuments of architecture. All the authors agree as regards the significance of the problem at stake, and as a rule express their approval for undertakings of this kind. The scepticism towards reconstruction voiced by Mieczysław Kurzątkowski who p e rceives it as a negative p h en omen o n constitutes an indubitably useful signal for conservation ethics and a warning against a rash initiation of this type of work. This is th e second extensive presentation of the q uestion of reconstruction in „Ochrona Zabytkow”. A discussion involving outstanding members of the conservation milieu was featured by Bożena Wierzbicka in „Ochrona Zabytkow” issued in 1979 (no 3, p. 245-251). At the time, I embarked u p o n the problem of the value of the reconstruction of historical monuments in my capacity as the chairman of the Group of Conservators in the Warsaw Branch of the Association of Historians of Art, which held a conference on 19 January 1979. In 1985 the Ateliers for the Conservation of Historical Monuments published an important, albeit little known, work by Tadeusz Kowalski on The Reconstruction of Architectonic Monuments. Theory and Praxis. This is the first, but, I believe, not the last study on the subject which remains significant not only from the artistic and socialideological point of view but, as history has shown, also from the political point of view. Reconstructions whose intention is the restoration of the historical form are contrary to the Charter of Venice. Once again, a conservation doctrine which restricts activity, has b e en announced; it frequently proves impossible to apply it in a given situation and in a concrete place since it does not take into account the tradition of various cultures and social reaction. Many conservators share the opinion that forms which remain in accordance with the original state should and must be restored following w artime destruction. The reconstruction of a mo nument highly regarded by a given national community manifests resistance against barbarian violence an d expresses the will to survive and continue the progress of national culture. This is the reason why almost half a century after the en d of the second world war and quite possibly due to the enormous devastation of historical monuments which has taken place recently in former Yugoslavia, The York Charter for Reconstruction After War has b e en passed in July 1991.

• Publisher: Narodowy Instytut Dziedzictwa
• Journal: Ochrona Zabytków
• Year: 1993
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 209-210

Dates

published

1993

Contributors

author

Kowalczyk Jerzy

Identifiers

ISSN

0029-8247