Is “Conservation in Ruin” Always the Best Solution? The Case of the Romanesque Church in Gârbova

Abstract

Is “Conservation in Ruin” Always the Best Solution? The Case of the Romanesque Church in Gârbova. As the leading institution in charge of built heritage protection in Romania after 1952, the Directorate of Historical Monuments (DHM) took essential steps in funding, designing, and conducting various conservation works on sites endangered by earthquakes, looting, improper use, or defective historic restorations. Partially demolished by the local community in the previous centuries and seriously affected by neglect, the Romanesque Lutheran church in Gârbova, Alba County, was in the 1960s on the verge of collapse. After a thorough cause analysis, the DHM managed to prevent disaster by undertaking a rescue intervention in line with the international trends of the time. Thus, the site became one of the first DHM projects to design the preservation of a church in a state of ruin rather than its complete reconstruction. Part of our more extensive research on Transylvanian heritage conservation during the Communist regime of the 20th century and based on previously unpublished information found in the archives of the National Heritage Institute, our study aims at showing that despite DHM’s best intentions, the church lost the chance to be more than a romantic ruin to these days. By rigidly applying the international restoration principles, the Directorate disregarded the parishioners’ will, even though this was one of the very few examples where the owner was still interested in the monument and even suggested its adaptive reuse as a funerary chapel due to its location in the village graveyard. Keywords: Gârbova, Romanesque church, conservation, ruin, 1960s.