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MODERN ARCHITECTURE AND ANCIENT MONUMENTS

I. INTRODUCTION a highly-developed expression of the human quality ofsociety and of its historical continuity. Man had sud-denly corne to see himself in the works of his ownhands, and he now :)aw that such an unprecedented rateof development contained a threat of total destruc-tion for these very creations of his. The realization ofthis fact gave birth to the movement for the protectionof monuments, which strove to gain a foothold in orderto stem the tide and at least save what could be saved.This defensive movl~ment rapidly created its own legalstructures throughout Europe, and yet the role de-volving on it was, fTorn the outset, a role of oppositionto large sectors of society. It was possible to suppose atthe time that the town-planners, in view of the rise oftheir profession during the century, might be able withina few decades to pull down and rebuild all the ancientsettlements of Europe. Meanwhile that section of publicopinion which wa:) interested purely in the rapidprogress of material civilisation saw the protection ofmonuments as an obstacle to that progress and consid-ered that its sole purpose was to shield the past againstthe present and th,~ future. Fortunately, the face ofEurope as history had shaped it did not have to under-go a sudden and complete transformation; but as weknow, concern for the protection of monuments hadnothing to do with this.Thus for public opinion the enormous growth of thetowns and the simultaneous birth of the idea of protect-ing monuments were trends which ran in oppositionto one another, so that there was polarization ofopinions and attitudes on the basis of two extreme

conceptions.There were, on the one hand, the extremist ideas ofthe partisans of conservation. The origin of theseideas dates from the 19th century: we are only toofamiliat with the mistaken and in some ways confusedideas which prevailed during the earliest decades of thelife of the movement. We need only refer to Dvorak,who, while ex pressing his pleasure at the greater respectnow shown for historical monuments and at their in-creased importance in culturallife, himself remarked, in1910, on the complete confusion of ideas with regardto the work requiring to be done, the conditions underwhich monuments !;hould be protected and even themotives behind their protection. This confusion, dueto an attitude and a system of reasoning which derivedfrom a generalizatio,n of purely subjective impressionsand feelings, was, it is true, gradually dissipated asdeas became cleart~r; but unfortunately certain mis-conceptions have slllrvived right into our day. The

The subject of this symposium of ours, arranged inconnection with the Third General Assembly of ICO-MOS, is "Contemporary architecture in ancient monu-ments and groups of buildings". At first sight it wouldappear to cover nothing more than the practical detailsrelating to the protection of monuments, and it was witbthis interpretation that the same subject was on theagenda for the first ICOMOS symposium, held at Ca-crs in 1967 and devoted to the problems connectedwith the conservation, restoration and revitalization ofareas and groups of buildings of historical interest. Itwas included in the Cacrs recommendations underpoint c. of the technica1 problems, under the title of"integration of modern architecture into the tissue ofold towns".It is certainly no accident if, from Point c. of the tech-nical problems the question bas now been promoted tothe rank of sole subject of a complete symposium. Webelieve we can now say tbat the problem of the connec-lion between contemporary architecture and ancientsettings is not just a tecbnical one; it is a fundamentaltheroretical problem for our discipline as a whole.Basically, what is it that we are talking about? We arediscussing the theoretical question of the relationsbipbetween the past and the present, the problem of thecreation of man's environment, or, in more generallerms, the philosophicill problems relating to man intimc and also in space. The subject we shall be dealingwith today therefore bas its roots in the very founda-lions of any protection of monuments, and the questionswe shall be needing to answer will go mu ch furtber thanproblems of detail of purely practical interest. Our taskwill be to define the part to be played by the protectionof monuments botb now and in the future and the placethis activity occupies in the awareness of contemporary

society.Witbout wishing to enter here into its bistorical origins,l sball attempt to put forward a few ideas which willshow the true nature of the problem. In the bistory ofmankind, the 19th century represents the thresbold ofa scientific and tecbnical age wbicb some have venturedto compare, for its importance in bistory, with the ageof the discovery of implements and of fire. It is ccr-tainly no accident that it sbould have heen necessary towait until bistory took this turn to see European societyinterest itself in that background to its existence wbicbit bad itself created over the centuries. Such a back-ground is not inerely a place to live against; it is also

Fig. I. -St. Paul's Choir School in London designed by the Architects Co-partnership who won a limited competition in 1962.It is designed to frame the apse of St. Paul's Cathedral and the sculptural vigour of the campanile, both designed by Sir ChristopherWren.

ignorance of the importance of anc~ent complexes ofbuildings and with visible and complete indifferencetowards them. This attitude was responsible for thesacrifice of large numbers of irreplaceable works ofhistorical value alI over Europe; to take only our owncapital as an example, it is unfortunately true that theancient city centre on the Left Bank was almost entirelydestroyed towards the tum of the century to make roomfor inriumerable and more profitable apartment houses.ln the historic centre of Buda there are only a fewappalling traces to remind us of that period, but thisis due, not to any concern for the preservation ofmonuments, but to a fortunate turn in the developmentof the social and economic factors affecting urban

planning.Are we therefore to be surprised if, for a whole sectionof public opinion, new building projects and the protec-tion of monuments appear to be two perfectly contra-dictory things, and if for a great many people a newbuilding in traditional surroundings is a dangerousmenace? Those who, out of respect for historical monu-ments, dread any introduction of contemporary archi-tecture in their vicinity can too often-and admittedly

result is that the prot~ction of monuments is seen evennowadays as an end in itself, and beauty is weighedagainst, or preferred to, truth and authenticity; theconception of the past is romntic and idealized, andany present-day interference is feared, if not categor-

ically rejected.Meanwhile, the ever more rapid progress of materialcivilization, technology and economic development hadled large sectors of society to adopt a different but noless uncompromising attitude. These considered well-being and comfort as an end in themselves, weighedmaterial civilization against culture or preferred theformer, and idealized self-interest and tangible profits;in short, their distinctive feature was an absence ofinterest in the teachings. of history and a completerejection of the past.The consequences of these two extreme conceptionsmay be seen and studied both in the outward appear-ance of our towns and in the state of public opinion.Our sites invariably show open sores due primarily tothe large-scale urban development projects of the 19thcentury , though their number has been increased stillfurther by the successive alterations carried out in

Fig. 2. -Rowning College: new dining hall by Howell, Killick, Partridge & Amis. This new part of the College matches the GreekRevival building buiIt in 1875 by Wilkin.

a third attitude which consists in placing economic andtechnical development on a higher plane than life it-self and doing everything to secure maximum well-being and comfort even where these involve oblivionof the true and more profoundly human content of life.AlI of these conceptions have led, and are still leading,to large numbers of errors the world over, and are thusimperilling those treasures which the architects andtown-planners have created and prererved over somany centuries. Such errors are visibly detrirnentalto the culture of mankind, and thug serve to multiply thealready numerous objections raised by certain conser-vation specialists with regard to modem architecture.Indeed these errors explain, and even to an extentjustify, the mistrust, the reticences and the passivityinvariably shown from the very outset by the partisansof the protection of monuments wherever modemarchitecture or town-planning were talked of in thecontext of an ancient setting. lnstead of analysing thedeeper social and economic causes of the errors com-mitted, and denouncing them or attempting to deal withthem, they invariably reacted by assuming an attitudeof what we might calI "passive exclusiveness", involving

not without cause-invoke the dangers involved andthe errors more than once committed in the past, andstill being committed today, in the name of life, pro-gress, and the rights of those creators who are buildingour future.It would indeed scarcely be reasonable to delly thatthere exists an extremist attitude which goes so far asto treat historical monuments as mere hindrances to lifeand progress. Those who adopt this position see in themthe main obstacles to magnificent architectural projects,and would for this reason be perfectly prepared to doaway with them, or-from motives diametrically oppos-ed to those of their opponents--to relegate them towithin the walls of a few "museum" districts, so as tobanish them from life itself, in which they consider theyare no more than a nu