THE INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION ON HISTORICAL MONUMENTS, 1933-1937 (original) (raw)

SEVEN YEARS OF WORK OF THE COMMISSION TO PRESERVE NATIONAL MONUMENTS

The editorial provides an overview of the operations of the Commission to Preserve National Monuments over the past seven years and sets out the concept of Heritage IV, in which the projects carried out by the Commission are presented in line with the recommendations of Article 16 of the Venice • Charter, calling for the precise documentation of conservation and restoration works and its publication. Uvodni urednički tekst sadrži panoramsku karakterizaciju sedmogodišnjeg rada Komisije za očuvanje nacionalnih spomenika i obrazloženje koncepta Baštine IV, koja sadrži predstavljanje projekata koje je Komisija provodila, u skladu sa preporukom sadržanom u članu 16. Venecijanske povelje o preciznom dokumentiranju radova konzervacije i restauraciju i objavljivanju dokumentacije. Ključne riječi: Komisija za očuvanje nacionalnih spomenika, rezultati rada, projekti restauracije i konzervacije, dokumentacija, dostupnost

Conservation in the ex-Yugoslav region after the 2nd World War – influence of Ljubo Karaman and France Stele; CONFERENCE "Post-War Restoration of Monuments. Theory and Practice of the 20th Century" St. Petersburg, Gatchina, December 4-5, 2014

Ljubo Karaman and France Stele, leading conservators in Croatia and Slovenia, respectively, were responsible for development of conservation practice from 1913 until 1965 in the ex-Yugoslav region. In the turbulent war and postwar period they sought, as students of Max Dvorak, to maximally apply principles of Austrian conservation to practice, endeavoring to conserve and restore urban complexes, monuments and supervise the restoration of paintings and sculptures in the absence of any monument preservation legislative. This work will describe procedures used in preservation of urban complexes and will detail the relationship of the two conservators as well as an important aspect of their influence on future generations of conservators and restorers, which is still an topical issue.

34 years and counting: The so far experience of World Heritage assets in Thessaloniki, Greece - 34 χρόνια και έπεται συνέχεια: Η μέχρι στιγμής εμπειρία των πολιτιστικών αγαθών Παγκόσμιας Πολιτιστικής Κληρονομιάς στη Θεσσαλονίκη

2023

Situated in the north of Greece, Thessaloniki, the country’s second-largest city, is foremostly admired for its uninterrupted history of over twenty-three centuries. In solid proof of this remarkable continuity, its historic center is interspersed with a wide array of archaeological and architectural remains that date from Hellenistic to modern times. The most distinguished segment of this unique heritage is by far the city’s Early Christian and Byzantine legacy. More than half of its surrounding walls, fourteen churches, and one bath comprise a unique ensemble, revered in the whole of Europe as early as the 19th century. Not surprisingly, at the end of the 20th century, it became one of the first Greek cultural assets to be inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Thirty-four years have passed since then, a substantial period of time that allows, on the present occasion of the 50th anniversary of the World Heritage Convention, for a review and appraisal of the impact of the inscription. This is precisely the goal of this paper, which will be pursued through an original discussion and evaluation of the consequences of World Heritage status, on one hand for the monuments themselves, and on the other, for their urban, architectural, social, and educational setting. Extensive bibliographic research and thorough on-site examination will provide the basis for this discussion, which will culminate with a didactic conclusion as to the degree to which the full potential of the inscription has been achieved or remains to be pursued.

The Contribution of the Turkish Historical Society to the First Stage of the Governmental Program for the Protection of Monuments in Edirne (1933-1941): Preservation Policies and Ideology in the Representation of Architectural Heritage

Belleten, 2012

The beginning of restoration works on a scientific base in Turkey dates back on 1933 when a specific committee for the protection of monuments (Anıtları Koruma Komisyonu) was officially appointed by the Ministry of Education. The preliminary working phase, carried on under the direction of this committee, was soon distinguished by the clear attempt to visualize the results in order to cast the monuments as national icons. The present paper's aim is to discuss this process of visualization focusing on the case study of a series of works realized in Edime from 1933 to 1944. Apart from the historical value of monuments included in the protection program, the study explores the ideological side of these works stressing their value as a pioneering enterprise of a modem nation that celebrated its emerging culture in the protection and preservation of monuments as a sign of progress and civilization. Edirne's restoration works in fact arouse a great deal of interest in the national...

A decade of implementation of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage

Ethnologies, 2014

In this article, Cécile Duvelle presents the main points of the evaluation of the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage undertaken by UNESCO a decade after its adoption in 2003. She discusses the achievements as well as the pitfalls of the Convention. Drawing on a survey involving State Parties as well as many non-state stakeholders including NGOs, representatives of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) bearer organizations, and academics, the authors of the evaluation report consider the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage to be a highly relevant international legal instrument, both in terms of its consistency with national and local priorities and with the needs of the concerned communities, groups and individuals. The Convention has broadened the more traditional view of heritage to include anthropological and sociological points of view. It also introduced a number of important concepts related to ICH, such as the unde...

Ethics and Politics in Conservation of Post-1945 European Heritage

Výzvy současné evropské památkové péče / Challenges of Contemporary European Heritage Care, 2022

A new cult of monuments, devised a quarter a century ago, was redirected to complex, formerly celebrated and suddenly disputed or rejected inheritance. Its complexity lays in its formal and functional variety, its integration in the spaces of everyday life and in its inscribed, repressed or re-recognized values and meanings. The concept of heritage refers here to physically and publicly visible, often omnipresent – therefore irritant, carelessly tolerated, or adopted – architecture, urban planning and sculptural monuments, whose initial task was to convey socially relevant messages or to help fulfill utopian and normalizing programs in traumatized and radically reformed societies of the divided Europe. Few years before the collapse of the Soviet Block, Norbert Huse initiated the discussion on uncomfortable architectural monuments, developing Willibald Sauerländer’s research on extension of the concept of monuments. It seems natural that these discursive anticipations emerged in West Germany, not only because of the decades-long confronting the collective guilt exemplified by ubiquitous, warning ruins and alienating modernist forms, but also due to conservation tradition that since 1900 insisted on the values of the aged, wounded and derelict monumental forms. Huse’s discussion was soon accompanied by another “western” initiative, the establishment of DOCOMOMO, which tended to transform aesthetically recognized architectural forms of Modernism (not rarely used as provisory tools of social reform) into heritage worthy of permanent care. It seems safe to say that this generally wasn’t the case in most of the emancipated nations of the post-communist Europe, where the obsolete ideological substrate endangered the matter and form of monument in the eyes and hands of the democratizing and renascent national communities. It is still hard to provide a comprehensive (and comparative) international diagnosis on the magnitude of these transformations – ranging from careless adaptation, indolence, vandalism and dereliction to removal and destruction – happening in this part of Europe in the aftermath of 1989. As time passes, it seems natural not only to document, comparatively research and publicly present the consequences of this increasingly distant yet still resounding inclinatio Imperii, but to create a synchronic, post-traumatic, critical and edifying diagnosis that could help define our sense of contemporaneity, collective memory and social responsibility. It should cover diverse social responses to central political change, but it should also strive to apply long acquired instruments of the conservation movement to this complex artistic, architectural or just prosaic inheritance, that is increasingly considered a valuable heritage. The inherent aim of the analysis of the phenomena prevailing after the fall of the Berlin Wall would be to unite the professional initiatives in wider post-communist European perspective. This presentation therefore tends to study the origins of the aforementioned cult, its development, accomplishments, limitations and problems that transcend the boundaries of the conservation profession. Due to the fact that transformation of public spaces in post-communist Europe gained immense social and political importance, equally by applying the principles of subtraction and addition, interdisciplinary comparative analysis of these processes should become questions of professional ethos and social responsibility.