Summary and conclusion The above is the second part of a report on the debate on the restoration of Uppsala cathedral (the first part was published in Konsthistorisk tidskrift 1976, pp. 115–144). The report has its origins in a course given at the University of Stockholm in 1974 under the auspices of the the institute of the History of Art. During the last fifty years, a large number of early Swedish churches has been restored. The main purpose of this work was often to remove 19th century additions, which aimed at the restoration of the building in a uniform style, and to provide instead a design supposedly more historically accurate or, according to the restorers at least, aesthetically more pleasing. Restoration of this type was usually carried out without protest or discussion, being regarded as the concern of a small group of experts centred in and around the appropriate state authority, the Swedish Central Office of National Antiquities (the central authority for the preservation of cultural monuments) and the Swedish Board of Public Buildings (the central administrative authority in charge of national buildings). It was of course inevitable that at an early date discussion should arise concerning the question of the revision of one of the 19th century's most criticized pieces of restoration work, that of Uppsala cathedral. The debate got seriously under way in the thirties, and continued for forty years, but although over fifty new suggestions for alteration were made no general solution could be found. During this period radical changes were made to the exterior of the church even though no plan had been finally adopted. The outcome of the debate was that when restoration was undertaken in 1971–1976 it was considered sufficient to carry out the necessary repair and maintenance work and avoid alterations governed by taste. The restoration of Uppsala cathedral is not typical of the history of Swedish restoring, since most problems of this nature were able to be solved without much debate. However, because of the conflicting opinions held by the parties involved, the case offers a fertile ground for study of the underlying principles of 20th century restoration ideals, persons and authorities active in the project being obliged to provide explicit motives for their opinions and the work they proposed carrying out. An attempt is made in this paper to present a preliminary survey of the facts of the case until the whole material, which is considerable and which has so far only partly been used, can be finally worked over. Our chief aim is not to describe and analyze each individual proposed restoration project but to illuminate those values which lay behind them along with the motives given in justification. No comparison has been made with other restoration projects. This would have been too great a burden on the authors since the history of Swedish restoration work has hitherto hardly been researched: and comparisons with work abroad have therefore been even more impossible although many interesting parallels undeniably exist, not the least of which is the cathedral in Trondheim. As an introduction it would perhaps be in place to set down a few basic facts on the history of Uppsala cathedral. The date of foundation is generally given as around 1260, although both earlier and later dates have been suggested. The ground plan is relatively close to that of Notre‐Dame in Paris and it is generally agreed that it was the intention of the founders to follow French originals closely. At an early stage of construction they were obliged to abandon stone as a building material in favour of brick, and when the church was consecrated in 1435 it had been influenced by many architectural styles, notably by the Baltic and low German gothic structures in brick. The exact design of the church at this period cannot be determined in detail—the design of the roof structure, the Western section and the buttresses, for instance, remains uncertain. The West tower is thought to have been built to its full height only during the last decades of the 15th century, while certain alterations were made, partly on the towers, during the latter part of the 16th century. New spires, designed by the Dutch building master Gerard de Besehe, were added in 1613. In 1702 the church was gutted by fire and the roof and buttresses had to be replaced. Repairs were carried out according to the intentions of Nicodemus Tessin the Younger, although the work was directly supervised by Hans Buchegger, the palace building‐master, the aim being to adapt the church as far as possible to current taste while still keeping within a tight economic framework. It was above all the perpendicular nature of the building that was to be changed. The roof was lowered, ridge turrets and pinnacles were removed, the flying buttresses were replaced by concave buttressing walls, and in 1741–45 two tower roofs were built to a design by Carl Hårleman, the leading Swedish architect of the day. During the next hundred years no major changes were made to the exterior (see ill. 1 for the appearance of the church in 1873). However, maintenance was neglected through lack of funds, and by the middle of the 19th century the cathedral had fallen into a state of disrepair. At the beginning of the 1870's the question of undertaking a thorough restoration was raised, and Helgo Zettervall, who had successfully restored the cathedral in Lund, was entrusted with the task. Zettervall, steeped as he was in the 19th century doctrine of uniform style, found the combination of styles unacceptable, and his proposed changes entailed an extensive rebuilding of the church in uniform gothic taste. His plans were strongly criticized and rejected, and it was only in 1882 after Zettervall had been appointed head of Överintendentsämbetet (the 19th century central administrative organ for public buildings and the body responsible for the inspection and control of restoration of churches) that his proposed plans for restoration were effected. The church was given a whole new appearance: the towers were built higher and provided with new, lofty spires, the roof was raised and ornamented with ridge turrets, the buttressing system was rebuilt and the entire building was bedecked in ornamental gothic apparel, mostly of cement (see illustrations 2 and 46). The interior, too, was thoroughly revised and reclothed in neo‐gothic guise. Zettervall met with criticism even while the work on restoring the cathedral was being done, and by the time it was completed in 1893 architecture reproducing earlier styles had started to go out of fashion. To the new generation of architects Zettervall's restoration of Uppsala cathedral was a manifestation of the worst possible taste of 19th century architecture, a view which soon became wide‐spread. Technically speaking the work had certain faults—the cement, for instance, was wrongly applied and quickly wore away. N. J. Söderberg, the deacon, was thus obliged repeatedly—the first time in 1915—to bring it to the attention of the cathedral chapter that repairs would be necessary. Söderberg, who had acted as secretary during Zettervall's restoration and who had published a major work on the subject, advocated repairing Zettervall's exterior and preserving it as it was, but met with strong resistance. He did, however, receive some support from Sigurd Curman, the Custodian of National Monuments, and Councillor Ragnar Hjort, responsible for churchbuilding questions in the National Board of Public Buildings, who in a joint statement prescribed “the preservation of all essential aspects of the exterior of the cathedral”, a statement obviously made on Söderberg's initiative and influenced by his values. However, among the members of the cathedral chapter were to be found men who strongly wished the church to be restored to “a more honourable state”, i.e. that all changes made by Zettervall to be removed. After a number of manoeuvres back and forth—Söderberg's line winning a certain support from the archbishop, Erling Eidem—the chapter decided to turn to the crown to appoint a national committee to study the whole question of restoration. This committee was appointed in 1937. Its members were Sigurd Curman, the Custodian of National Monuments, archbishop Erling Eidem, Counsillor Ragnar Hjort of the Board of Public Buildings, Gerda Boëthius, university lecturer and art historian who, in collaboration with Axel Romdahl, had recently published an important work on the history of the cathedral in the middle ages, and Ragnar Östberg, an architect and Sweden's leading advocate of the national, romantic style of building. Arthur Engberg, Minister of ecclesiastical affairs, acted as chairman. The members of the committee appear to have seen themselves as decision‐makers rather then fact‐finders— this is hardly surprising, given who they were—and in April, under the supervision of Ragnar Östberg, the systematic removal of Zettervall's additions to the building was begun on the excuse that, technically speaking, they were in poor condition. A year later the work of rebuilding the buttresses was started, the flying buttresses being partly replaced by buttressing walls reminiscent of those put in by Tessin. These “protective measures” managed to alter the appearance of the exterior of the cathedral before the suggestions made by the committee had even been put forward for discussion. After the outbreak of the Second World War, the committee was instructed to propose only such changes as were “absolutely necessary to protect the church from damage” it was explicitly ordered in writing “not to realize proposals entailing a complete architectonic revision of the church unless such measures were necessary for technical reasons‐. However, since right from the start the committee had been intent on a thorough restoration, and since after the 1939 instructions it was forced to provide technical justification for any suggestion it may make, one of the main themes of their report concerned the technical shortcomings of the building, which, the committee declared, were “of an unsuspectedly difficult and dangerous nature«. Another important theme of the report was criticism of Zettervall's architecture on aesthetic grounds. Among other things, it was said to be “false”, “dry and stereotyped” and “foreign to the character of the church”, but still the committee was unwilling—here, of course, the 1939 directives made themselves felt—to suggest rebuilding for architectonic reasons alone. Nevertheless, since “weathering and erosion had set in in all areas . . . quite catastrophically”, the committee considered that “there was no doubt that the results of this latest, unfortunate attempt at restoring the architecture of the church should be completely removed from the exterior, since this had now had served its purpose”. As to the problem of how to replace Zettervall, the members of the committee saw a number of possibilities. One was a “historical reconstruction”, although what the cathedral had looked like in the earliest period was not sufficiently well documented to allow such reconstruction. On the other hand, the committee found its appearance in the period before Zettervall's restoration to be so well known through drawings and photographs that it could be restored to its original condition. “Nonetheless, a reconstruction of this nature would give us a monument which to far too great an extent was a newly‐built historical copy, the value of which would thus be greatly reduced.” It was thus, in the opinion of the committee, a more attractive proposition to imagine “freely and independently created” new building work, a prerequisite of which must be “the most stringent demands on the highest architectonic quality”. In order to “improve the exterior architectonic garb of the cathedral”, the committee had entrusted Ragnar Östberg with the task of drawing up a plan for a suggested restoration, and this was now put forward as a “declaration of intent«. This project (ill. 3 a, b) included replacing the flying buttresses with buttressing walls of the type seen on the church before Zettervall (as we have seen, the committee had already started this work before the publication of its report). The spires, too, were to be pulled down and the towers lowered by about 10 metres, the new spires being given an appearance strongly reminiscent of their 17th century form (see figs, 1 a, b). In addition to this, the ridge turret was to be removed and the roof lowered; the western gable of the nave was to be brought 1.5 metre further in, and the roof frieze was to be torn out and replaced by one of Östberg's own design. Details in cement and cement rendering were to be removed. Almost all these proposed measures were justified on technical and aesthetic grounds; but technical reasons were given throughout as decisive, the aesthetic “improvements” being merely secondary advantages gained through work which would in any case have to be carried out. Östberg's suggested restoration was received relatively cooly by the press and the instances to which it was referred. Most critical of all was the National Board of Public Buildings which suggested that a competition be held for architects wishing to restore the cathedral. In 1945 the competition was publicly announced, and after the expiry of the appointed time in the autumn of 1946, 25 suggestions had been received. Most competitors had visualized a church built in a style closely related to Baltic brick gothic, while a smaller group preferred a building inspired by French gothic, in some cases advocating at the same time the preservation of much of Zettervall's architecture. Others had suggested different solutions, some finding a point of departure in the earlier history of the cathedral while others took the contemporary style of architetture as their model. (All suggestions are reproduced in the illustrations shown in part 1.) The prizegiving tribunal (see p. 120, part 1 for its members) did not consider that it could recommend any one of these suggestions to be carried out, so no first prize was awarded. Instead they suggested that the eight competitors who had received an award or who had had their projects purchased should be invited to compete again. The tribunal consistently made its judgements on aesthetical grounds and, in principle, appeared to have been ready to accept radical changes in the building. S:t Eriks skrin (ill. 37) for instance, which proposed replacing the western towers with a campanile detatched from the main building, was judged by the tribunal to show “independence and originality” and was among those purchased. The second competition took place in 1948–49 as suggested by the tribunal; but the members of the tribunal held strongly differing opinions as to the merits of the entries. A majority—seven members—preferred Reflexion (ill. 38), designed by Sigurd Lewerentz and an attempt to combine parts of Zettervall's church with additions in a modern style, but four of the members reserved their opinions. Two of these preferred Cyrillus Johansson's Korsblomma (ill. 39) which had its source of inspiration in Ragnar Östberg's proposed restoration. Since the prize‐giving tribunal was unable to agree, the whole question of restoration had again become uncertain and a solution seemed further off than ever. At the same time the protective work started in 1936 was continuing under the supervision of professor Henrik Kreüger, and, in practice, was resulting in the gradual alteration of the exterior of the church without any long‐term plan having been adopted. This was the position when the government decided to attempt a solution by appointing another public committee. The instructions issued to this committee—appointed in June 1951—emphasized that “serious” attempts should be made at restoring the building according to “antiquarian principles”. That the restoration should be “antiquarian” must be interpreted not only as a reaction against the architectonic variety which had appeared through the competitions, but also as an effort to break the stalemate. The instructions given to the committee included, however, no definition of what was meant by an antiquarian restoration, and the vagueness of the concept had a stronginfluence on the work done by the committee. The two art historians who were members of the committee, Aron Borelius and Andreas Lindblom, were of the opinion that by reference to early illustrations and analogy with other churches a radical reconstruction of the exterior of the church should be made. When it was discovered that existing illustrations of the church as it appeared before the fire of 1702 were far too schematically executed to be used as models for reconstruction work, Borelius and Lindblom concentrated their interest instead on the medieval recesses in the western section under Zettervall's walls. In the opinion of Borelius and Lindblom, the whole restoration should start out from these recesses, which should be emphasized and provided with supplementary details. A more restrictive line was advocated by the architect Peter Celsing, who was not a member of the committee but who had been engaged to work out in detail the suggestions taken up for discussion in the committee. At an early stage Celsing demonstrated a model whereby the church, with only a few additions, would be able to retain its existing design. It would retain Zettervall's volume but not his details—Celsing's intention appears to have been to make positive use of the ascetic character of the church after the “protective measures” had stripped it of its gothic ornamentation. Lindblom and Borelius opposed Celsing's policies, saying that they were incompatible with the instructions to carry out restoration in antiquarian taste. At first the other members of the committee appear to have accepted this standpoint, but as their work progressed and the difficulties of reconstructing the cathedral according to an early design became more apparent, Celsing's views became more attractive. He appears to have had his warmest supporter in the figure of Gunnar Wejke, an architect and head of the National Board of Public Buildings, who in the final stages was chairman for the committee. The final suggestion was a compromise: the recesses on the western facade were to be uncovered and added to, and several other changes were to be made, while the rest of the church was mainly to be adapted to Celsing's intentions, i.e. it was to be added to with restraint (ill. 52). A variation on this suggestion, which the committee was unable to accept, proposed leaving the recesses as they were (the “fourth alternative”, as it was called; ill. 51). Before the suggestions made by the restoration team had even been considered by all the parties concerned, new plans were presented. Peter Celsing and Sigurd Lewerentz, taking the viewpoints of the National Board of Public Buildings into special consideration, had revised the “fourth alternative” (ill. 54), and Bengt Romare, an architect, in collaboration with the Central Office of National Antiquities, had come up with four versions of his suggested buildings (ills. 55–56). Both departments therefore again found themselves taking different sides in the question of how to restore the cathedral. It was in order to break this deadlock that Ragnar Edenman, the Minister of ecclesiastical affairs, decided in 1962 to entrust a cathedral architect with the task of drawing up plans for the restoration of both the interior and the exterior. On the advice of Bengt Thordeman, the Custodian of National Antiquities, Åke Porne, whose most outstanding merit hitherto had been the restoration of Lau church on Gotland, was chosen for the job. Although a certain restraint was recommended, the instructions to the architect left the way open to the suggestion of major changes. Pome's project, presented in 1967, was, too, one of the most radical in the whole history of the debate. The underlying philosophy was that the church should be restored to all its original simplicity as conceived by Porne: on the exterior the suggested changes included giving the western towers new, lower spires, the west facade was to be completely redesigned and large portions of the visible buttressing system were to be removed (ill. 57–59). Inside the building, Zettervall's murals were to be plastered over, the floor of the choir was to be lowered, almost all wooden appointments were to be replaced, the pulpit was to be moved and a moveable altar was to be located in the centre of the transept. These latter measures were justified by a desire to “bring the congregation into closer contact with the altar and pulpit . . . in accordance with clearly discernible trends in modern Christianity”. The Board of National Buildings was extremely critical of Pome's suggestion, and raised the question whether it was really the task of the restoring architect “to correct those aesthetic shortcomings which he considered to exist in a historical monument”. The Office of National Antiquities, with which Porne had clearly collaborated continually, was on the other hand mainly agreeable to the suggestion. Opinion in other instances was divided. All received the suggested exterior cooly, while the interior generally was judged to be sufficiently good to serve as a basis for continued work. The cathedral congregation was, however, critical of a number of the suggested changes. An extremly important factor in the formation of public opinion was an article published in Svenska Dagbladet by professor Göran Lindahl, in which he claimed that Porne's project—just as in other, earlier suggestions—was a manifestation of “private artistic” ambition. The church should, declared Lindahl, be spared from further corrections of taste. By the autumn of 1967, Ragnar Edenman, now county governor of Uppsala, and those in the Ministry of Educational and Cultural Affairs responsible for restoration, appear to have decided to carry out restoration of the interior without further consideration. In December Porne was engaged to revise the suggested interior with regard to the criticisms of the authorities concerned—he was instructed to collaborate with all instances except the Board of Public Buildings, which had been the most critical of all. By June 1969 the revised suggestion was ready. Plans for a central altar had been abandoned and the pulpit was allowed to remain in its old place, but still radical changes were suggested which would destroy the uniform neo‐gothic interior. In the late autumn an advisory group headed by the county governor Edenman approved the plans, and in the beginning of March 1970 a government bill was submitted to parliament requesting funds for the realization of the project. Shortly before this date—in the beginning of February—professors Göran Lindahl and Rudolf Zeitler and Anders Åman, a university lecturer, had publicly demanded in Upsala Nya Tidning that the planned restoration be stopped. This resulted in five of the six members for Uppsala in the Lower House of Parliament moving that Parliament reject the bill. This multi‐party action was of decisive importance in the continued consideration of the proposal. In addition, during the spring and summer of 1970, a much‐publicized exhibition, strongly critical of the suggested restoration and put together by students at the Institute of the History of Art at Uppsala, was open to the public in Uppsala and Stockholm. In the autumn of 1970 the bill had reached the Standing Committee, which, after a study visit to Uppsala, expressed “the gravest doubts” as to alterations made on aesthetic grounds. In doubtful cases, they declared no alterations should be made. The bill was accepted, but the committee made it a condition that their stated point of view should be the subject of the most careful consideration. Parliament sanctioned the proposals of the committee. In the beginning of 1971 a restoration committee headed by county governor Edenman was formed with the purpose of carrying out Porne's revised suggestion for restoration of the interior. In theory the committee was granted unlimited powers to decide what alterations were to be made, but at the same time it was a stringent demand that the Standing Committee's request be observed and the greatest restraint be exercised. The restoration committee found these instructions to be so categorically formulated that they by and large completely refrained from making any alterations on aesthetic grounds. The only noteworthy exception was the removal of the so‐called boys’ choir gallery and the wooden appointments of Ansgar's chapel, both of which were designed by Lars Israel Wahlman and added in the twenties. The result was de facto the reparation and renovation of Zettervall's neo‐gothic interior. The exterior, too, was repaired and conserved in spite of the fact that as short a time previously as 1967 the intention was that restoration of the interior was to be followed by the redesigning of the church exterior. At Whitsuntide 1976 the cathedral was reconsecrated. Before attempting a summary of some of the main points to be considered in the history of the restoration of Uppsala cathedral, it must first be remembered that during the initial stages of the debate Zettervall's church was still by and large intact. Damage to the cement ornamentation could have been repaired relatively cheaply. In spite of the fact that Curman, the Custodian of National Monuments, had advocated preserving Zettervall's architecture, in 1934 the chapter of the cathedral requested that a committee be appointed to study the question of giving the building “a more honourable” appearance; and the committee, formed in 1937, never even considered preserving Zettervall but immediately started demolishing architectural elements put in by him and, in some cases, replacing them with new elements designed by Ragnar Östberg. These protective measures, as they were called, were continued even after the committee's suggestions had been rejected, and work was carried on with occasional stoppages until the beginning of the fifties. The fact that this work was allowed, in spite of harsh criticism from the National Board of Public Buildings and others, is one of the most astonishing aspects of the whole business. The explanation is, perhaps chiefly to be sought in the vagueness of the government departments involved as to who was responsible for the project, and the authority apparently enjoyed by professor Kreüger, supervisor of the work. Another decisive factor was, of course, that decisions to carry out “protective measures” were many on a number of different occasions, so that each individual decision appeared to be of limited significance—that the combined effect was disastrous was noticed when it was too late. As a result of this work, however, the situation as far as restoration was concerned had changed. The church was now clothed in a non‐uniform, rudimentary architectonic garb. After the mutilation of Zettervall's exterior, the following courses of action, in principle at least, lay open for the future: 1. The church could be reconstructed according to an earlier design. 2. The church could be redesigned. This offered an unlimited number of possibilities of combining existing, reconstructed and newly‐designed forms. 3. The church could be preserved as it was. Future work would thus be limited to maintenance. The first alternative was taken up in the public reports but was almost certainly never seriously considered. Practically all those who came forward with suggestions had chosen the second alternative and proposed a newly‐designed church more or less strongly reflecting its early history. In some suggestions, chiefly the Lewerentz project, modern designs were used, but on the whole documented or supposed earlier forms were chosen. In both cases, those making the suggestions based their attitude on aesthetic or—to quote Göran Lindahl—"private artistic” considerations with the aim of creating something better than that which already existed; they advocated “a work of restorationart”. References to earlier designs of the church were naturally common in the motives given for proposed designs, as were references to its “inherent character”, but both the various committees and the prizegiving tribunal had clearly stated their viewpoint that restoration should leave scope for independent creation. A theme found throughout, from the first report to Porne's description of the restoration he thought necessary, is also criticism of Zettervall—words such as “lacklustre” and “stereotyped” are the judgements of those who thought they knew better. Why, then, was not one of these suggestions realized? One reason, of considerable importance, was most probably that the two most important authorities involved, the Central Office of Natonal Antiquities and the Board of Public Buildings, were unable to agree on one and the same suggestion. The First committee, through the Figure of Sigurd Curman, had its roots firmly attached in the Office of Antiquities, but was strongly criticized by the Board of Public Building. The second committee was headed in its later stages by the head of the Board of Public Buildings, Gunnar Wejke—and the most stringent criticism came from the Office of Antiquities. In the years around 1960 a stalemate was reached, both authorities preferring different suggestions. Porne clearly worked in close association with the Central Office of National Antiquities, and—in consequence, one is tempted to add—his suggestion met with harsh criticism from the Board of Public Buildings. When all is considered, this disagreement stems from the fact that the whole question is charged with subjective values and private artistic ambitions where Sweden's most important historical and cultural monument is concerned, and the situation has not been made more simple by the numbers of persons who made suggestions at the same time as they were antiquarian experts or administrators in the various authorities. That Porne's suggestion was finally submitted to parliament was not because it represented any new principle or because it was superior to earlier projects but—in all probability—because it was considered at a decision‐making level that this discussion, which could apparently continue indefinitely, had to be brought to an end some time. It was, too, of the greatest importance that Ragnar Edenman, who had been following the debate, first as undersecretary in the department of ecclesiastical affairs, then as Minister of ecclesiastical affairs himself and finally as the county governor of Uppsala, had systematically worked towards bringing about a decision. When attempts were made from 1967 onwards to manoeuvre a decision into position, altering Zettervall's interior, which was still intact, was, significantly, considered to be a less controversial move than altering the already badly damaged exterior; restoration of the exterior was envisaged as following at a later stage. Even in the spring of 1970, when the bill was submitted to parliament, restoration of the cathedral was seen as being of a drastic nature, but the restrictive formulations of the Standing Committee removed the basis for changes made on aesthetic grounds. Consideration of the bill by parliament was naturally strongly influenced by the multi‐party motion put forward by members from the Uppsala region, and by the fact that the whole question was entirely independent of party politics. This motion was, in turn, an expression of a strong local opinion, aroused partly by Lindahl's, Åman's and Zeitler's articles, and since these do seem to have played a major role in inspiring the motion, it would be reasonable to state that the three art historians made a decisive contribution to stopping the planned rebuilding. The restoration work carried out during 1971–1976 was officially described as a revised version of Porne's suggested interior, but was de facto merely a renovation of Zettervall's. The only major change—the removal of the boys’ choir gallery and the wooden appointments of Ansgar's chapel—erased not Zettervall's work but that of a later generation. Plans for restoring the exterior have long since been abandoned, although the exact date when this happened is impossible to determine. The first action of the restoration committee appointed in 1971, however, was to start maintenance work on the facade, in spite of their statement to the effect that they were aware that “poor quality” architecture would thus be preserved. The restoration work carried out has thus chiefly followed the third of the three courses of action outlined above—careful conservation. The majority of earlier suggestions deserve the epithet “antiquarian”. As already indicated at the beginning of this paper, we have not been able to make comparisons between the restoration history of this cathedral and that of the hundreds of other projects carried out during the same periods in the taste of the day. Nonetheless, the trend of the seventies is probably towards greater restraint in undertaking the alteration of early buildings on aesthetic grounds. The history of the restoration of Uppsala cathedral should serve as a warning against a relapse into the self‐sufficient corrections of taste made in the fifties and sixties.