The Réseau Art Nouveau Network, a European network for the study, protection and promotion of Art Nouveau heritage, celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. An important milestone that RANN intends to celebrate by organising with the collaboration of urban.brussels an international conference dedicated to the restoration of the Art Nouveau architectural heritage, remembering that 2024 will also mark the 30th anniversary of the publication of the UNESCO Declaration of Turin, which established the guidelines for the practice and theory of restoring this heritage, in full respect of its material specificities.
The punctuality of the analysis underpinning this declaration has not preserved it from oblivion. Having recalled the main assumptions of the Venice Charter, we would like to understand why 30 years after its publication the need was felt to draw up a code of intervention specifically dedicated to Art Nouveau. We would also like the conference to be an opportunity to clarify, through concrete examples, the critical fortune of the two UNESCO documents, aware that their implementation in Europe is not always systematic.
We invite architectural historians and art historians, architects and engineers, and craftsmen who in their daily practice deal with Art Nouveau plans, structures and materials to answer these questions
1964-1994: Thirty years of restoration history: insights and perspectives
If authenticity and reversibility are the keywords of the UNESCO charter adopted in Venice in 1964, which emphasizes the importance of a rigorous critical approach to the heritage to be restored, respecting the specificities of materials and techniques, the declaration presented in Turin in 1994, takes up these assumptions to specify the specificities of Art Nouveau heritage. In this section we would like architectural and art historians to help us follow the evolution of the restoration between 1964 and 1994, allowing us to understand the historical and critical assumptions that led to the drafting of the Turin Charter. We consider it equally important to analyse some of the most significant restoration sites of the thirty-year period in order to question its success or failure and to examine its impact on the preservation of Art Nouveau heritage throughout Europe. We would also like to initiate, through the analysis of concrete examples of restoration, how Western and Eastern Europe come to deal with the assumptions of the two UNESCO declarations.
1994-2024: Theory and practice of restoration
The definition of the Gesamtkunstwerk of Art Nouveau construction must necessarily extend to a restoration site that is respectful of the history of the site, its constituent architectural principles. This assumption seems to us the indispensable starting point of a critical reflection that we would like to lead to the definition of precise theoretical norms that can guarantee a univocal and transnational approach to the conservation and restoration of architecture. Through the analysis of concrete cases, we would like to answer questions central to the critical debate and concerning the modalities and conditions of reconstruction. Furthermore, we would like to examine the role and function of architecture books and periodicals (e. g. Moderne Bauformen) in the process of restoration and reconstruction.
2024-2050: Sustainable restoration as the basis for more resilient and aware communities.
Art Nouveau architecture is a symbol of technical and functional innovation. How can Art Nouveau architecture is a symbol of technical and functional innovation. How can restoration in the present respect the innovative nature of the heritage and be sustainable? Through a broad overview of concrete, practical case studies, we would like to be able to examine and discuss the latest findings and best practices regarding the use of sustainable materials and resources, without of course losing sight of the criterion of reversibility. In this section, the case studies can also refer to different eras than the early 20th century, if they can be an opportunity to bring useful solutions of interest to Art Nouveau.
Rereading the Venice and Turin papers critically, we would like to enable the definition of a clear and up-to-date international intervention protocol that takes the criteria of sustainability into account.
For further reading, please find below the link with the original texts of the Venice Charter and the Turin Declaration.
The RANN also wishes to give the floor to young researchers: 15% maximum of the symposium lectures will be reserved for them (theses or dissertations defended or in the writing process).
The conference proceedings will be published during 2025.
For any questions, please contact the RANN Secretariat at erika.giuliani@artnouveau-net.eu or irene.domenech@artnouveau-net.eu. You cannot answer this call for papers but you would like to keep in touch with the Réseau Art Nouveau Network for future scientific activities? Please contact info@artnouveau-net.eu
Ezio Godoli
Researcher and President of the Documentation centre for contemporary architecture in Tuscany, Viareggio, Italy
Astrid Huber
Head of the Information and Training Centre of Architectural Conservation, Wien, Austria
Breda Mihelic
Researcher, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Alexandre Pais
President of the Museums and Monuments in Portugal
Josef Sisa
Professor of the Department of 19th-century’s Architecture and Fine Arts at the Institute of Art History, Budapest, Hungary
Barbara Van der Wee
Architect, Brussels, Belgium
Benjamin Zurstrassen Curator, Horta Museum, Brussels, Belgium
Julia Katona
Secretary of research and research project leader at the Museum of Applied Arts in Budapest, Hungary
Erika Giuliani
Coordinator of the Réseau Art Nouveau Network
Irene Domènech Comella
Assistant coordinator of the Réseau Art Nouveau Network
Réseau Art Nouveau Network,
Bruxelles Urbanisme et Patrimoine
Mont des Arts 10-13, 1000 Bruxelles.
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