Memories in architecture
With the support of:
On the occasion of Open Monumentendag 2019 Archipel invites the Dutch professor Wim Denslagen (1946).
His thesis Omstreden herstel, which was published, deals with the controversial issues that appear at each restoration: to restore the original shape as much as possible or to conserve as much as possible.
It describes and analyses the debate on the principles of restoration and tries to find the answer to the question of the extent to which the conservation-oriented restoration of the principle of a short-term opinion, are allowed to be called. To this end, a number of headline-making restoration projects from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the Netherlands are analysed. Denslagen shows that the adoption of the romantic values by conservationists gave rise to a new wave of modern additions and transformations. Also for current restorations, the question of preservation versus the repair still plays.
Based on Archipel’s year theme ‘Palimpsest’ Wim Denslagen expands his lecture to the disappearance of architecture, to the memories of architecture.
Wim Denslagen (1946), was a professor at the university of Utrecht and has published, among others, Romantic Modernism: nostalgia in the world of conservation. Amsterdam (2004), Memories of Architecture. Architectural Heritage and Historiography in the Distant Past (2009), Beemden en bouwlanden. Het verdwijnende boerenlandschap (2011) en Observations on Urban Aesthetics. London, Paris and New York (2016).
