The conservation of the ‘modern’: Franco Albini and the Museum of the Treasury of San Lorenzo, Genoa

Abstract

This paper looks at the logic and significance of the recent works of conservation and restoration carried out by the authors at the Museum of the Treasury of the Cathedral of San Lorenzo in Genoa, which was designed and built by Franco Albini in 1953–56. More than 50 years after completion of the structure, various problems had emerged regarding the fixtures and fittings, the artefacts exhibited and the exhibition layout itself – most of them due to wear and tear, roof leakages and the very methods/means used in the presentation of material. The interventions of conservation, maintenance, repair and – in a few cases – modification represented an occasion to look at the clashes – sometimes the outright contradictions – that arose between the notions of ‘origin’ and ‘originality’, ‘authentic’ and ‘authorial’, ‘modern’ and ‘contemporary’, which underlie all reflection upon restoration, especially those concerning modern architecture.