Urban Theory

Texts opposing restoration massacres: Let's not restore, let's preserve!

The book titled "Let's not restore, let's preserve!" contains texts by Georg Dehio and Aloïs Riegl, which criticize the restoration approach focused on completing, and even reconstructing, ancient artifacts, and discuss it through concrete examples. The discussion, which begins with a critique of a restoration project for a building in Heidelberg Castle, expands to a broader context and continues with fundamental texts that propose a new understanding of preservation at the beginning of the 20th century. The Dehio and Riegl articles included in the book are complemented by "Modern Cult of Monuments," a paradigm-setting text by Aloïs Riegl, which is included as an appendix to the book. Hüseyin Tüzün translated the three texts by Dehio and Riegl, while Erdem Ceylan translated "Modern Cult of Monuments." The book was edited and introduced by Aykut Köksal. In a part of this introduction, Köksal says:

"The message of the texts that make up the content of the book titled 'Let's not restore, let's preserve!' can be summarized by Dehio's words, 'The right thing is not to restore, but to preserve.' The 19th century witnessed the conflict of two opposing views in the context of restoration and preservation. The first of these views belonged to Viollet-le-Duc, who aimed to bring the monument to its pure style, and the second to John Ruskin, who said that we have no right to touch a historical building in any way. For John Ruskin, the monument had to die; its beautiful death would serve as an example for future architects. In the background of Ruskin's thoughts lies the 'ruin culture' and 'ruin aesthetic' whose roots go back to the 17th century. The 18th century became the century when 'ruin culture' reached its peak. Diderot, after visiting a Salon consisting of ruin paintings, said, 'To make a monument interesting, it must be turned into a ruin.' The English architect John Soane transformed this culture into the main concept of the museum he founded, carrying the ruin aesthetic into the next century.

Thus, behind Georg Dehio's words, 'The right thing is not to restore, but to preserve,' there is the intellectual result of a three-century process expressed in Ruskin. Aloïs Riegl systematizes this perspective with his own conceptualizations in 'Modern Cult of Monuments.'"