Let's Conserve, Not Restore!

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

The book titled "Let's not restore, let's preserve!" includes texts by Georg Dehio and Aloïs Riegl that criticize the restoration approach focused on completing, and even reconstructing, old artifacts, and discuss it through concrete examples. The discussion, which begins with a critique of a restoration project of a building in Heidelberg Castle, expands to a broader context and continues with fundamental texts that propose a new understanding of conservation 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 his introduction, Köksal says:

"The message of the texts that constitute 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 clash of two opposing views in the context of restoration and conservation. The first of these views belonged to Viollet-le-Duc, who aimed to bring the monument to its pure style, and the second belonged to John Ruskin, who said that we have no right to touch a historical structure 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 ideas lies the 'ruin culture' and 'ruin aesthetics,' which have roots dating back to the 17th century. The 18th century became the century when 'ruin culture' reached its peak. After visiting a Salon consisting of ruin paintings, Diderot said, 'To make a monument interesting, it must be turned into a ruin.' The English architect John Soane turned this culture into the main concept of the museum he founded, carrying ruin aesthetics into the next century.

Indeed, 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. It was Aloïs Riegl who systematized this view with his own conceptualizations in 'Modern Cult of Monuments.'"