Restoration modalities in 20th century architecture: confronting skyscrapers interventions

Abstract

The article addresses the problems of interventions in contemporary architecture - an issue that has emerged at least twenty years ago, without reaching sufficient maturity so far. Analyzing different theoretical orientations and intervention modalities, the author identifies a diffuse tendency to re- make rather than maintaining and, as a consequence, the suppressing of built parts and of authentic materials, as well as a progressive loss of architectonic memories. In opposition to this diffuse praxis, the work realized in the Pirelli skyscraper in Milan followed a conservative approach of intervention, concretely demonstrating that the restoring of modern architecture can be faced with the tools offered by the disciplinary field of restoration - that is to say, with the utilization of theoretical, methodological and scientific rigour. For that matter, an arduous critical process is required, through which an adequate conservative approach can develop, as well as a creative opening for the project, making the preservation of the building and its transmission to the future possible, according to the restoration principles. Through her analysis, the author shows that to deny modern heritage the possibility of a conservative approach is unjustifiable and devoid of theoretical basis.