Abstract
Muthesius criticizes restoration architects whose aim is to return a building to an ideal past state, an approach he decries as both impossible (because one cannot replicate the work of a craftsman of 500 years before) and dangerous when nearly successful (because it conceals the stages of the building’s construction). Drawing on the ideas of William Morris, he instead calls for preserving buildings by repairing them where needed in materials that contrast with the rest of the building, thus clearly distinguishing new from old.
Notes
1 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Part I, lines 575-579. Trans. by Walter Kauffmann as Goethe’s Faust (New York: Anchor Books, 1990), 109.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Hermann Muthesius
Originally published as “Die ‘Wiederherstellung’ unserer alten Bauten,” in Hermann Muthesius, Kunst und Kultur (Jena and Leipzig: Eugen Diederichs, 1904), 117–155. An earlier version was published in 1902 as “Die ‘Wiederherstellung’ von Baudenkmälern” in Die Neue Deutsche Rundschau 13 (1902): 156-68. The German text is available online at Cloud Cuckoo Land: https://www.cloud-cuckoo.net/openarchive/Autoren/Muthesius/Muthesius1909.htm