Restauro del moderno: fortuna critica, incertezze attuative

Abstract

This paper critically explores the relationship between the history of modern architecture and restoration of the modern, identifying connections and discrepancies between the contexts of the two disciplines. It finds the cause of the latter in the unstable structure of the history of modern architecture, which is changing rapidly from many points of view. It highlights how this situation can easily lead to problems and controversy over the restoration of the modern and especially over the specific conservation techniques designed to maintain its authenticity. Two famous images of Walter Benjamin are used to quickly underline the contradictions in which restoration may fall, those of the angel of history and of the pearl diver, taking them as a historical paradox. The purpose is also to underline the questions which accumulate around the history of the tradition of the modern.