by Lorenzo Povelato
First of all let
us reaffirm the concept of conservation as a result of a particular
planning choice through which we formally renounce to leave a sign of
our presence.
Our silent presence will aim at preserving integrally the manufacts’
physical consistency, and diminishing, whenever it is possible, the
causes of decay.
Restoration doesn’t mean to eliminate – on the basis of
formal assessments - those elements that don’t pertain from the
beginning to the general structure of a building. Otherwise any organism
that would have developed and grown under the continuous and progressive
action of time would be completely disintegrated.
Our efforts tend to maintain integrally the architectural image - as
reinforced and shaped by time and history – of buildings and,
more generally, of the whole urban context.
The intervention we propose, in spite of its low visual impact, doesn’t
mean to be the expression of any Romantic enthusiasm for ruins. Architecture
cannot and mustn’t be limited to a mere contemplation, since,
to understand the complexity of its numerous symbolic aspects, it should
be lived or at least used.
Anyway what we intend cannot even become a stylistic recovery of the
original image – an image that most probably has never come true
except maybe in our false interpretation of building’s history.
The suppression of some parts of the building that wouldn’t correspond
to the planner’s original idea, or worse the reconstruction of
other parts, not only would cancel essential moments of building’s
history but wouldn’t be the least bit in line with the modern
concept of restoration. Such changes, especially when not accurately
documented, could lead any future scholar towards a false vision of
building since the historical process would be filtered through our
personal interpretation.
Our intervention will come true on matter rather than on shape, since
it aims at recovering the built element, avoiding any alteration of
the signs that may testify a former building technique - a tangible
trace of a technological culture with no heir and therefore condemned
to disappear.
“External surfaces not only give evidence of the most decayed
places but are also the guardian of a historic heritage which expresses
itself through the signs of time and of the anthropic actions that have
been stored for centuries”.
In this context, a true knowledge of the work is the only basis on which
any concrete and scientific interpretation of the architectural object
may develop to draw up a project aimed at preserving what does exist
and at suppressing any factor of decay. This shall be done “…
preserving not only the quantity of matter but also its distribution
and quality that represent a building’s own readability…”
Our contribution only tackles one episode of the building’s life.
So we have no right to alter, nor to modify in any way, the vast information
that surfaces and the whole architectural structure may still reveal
to future generations, on condition that they shall ask the right questions
and, above all, that they shall have more modern instruments to do so.
