The ‘Restoration’ of Our Old Buildings [1904]

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.

Keywords:

• Hermann Muthesius
• historic preservation
• restoration
• William Morris
• SPAB
• Anglo-German exchange
• completion
• Heidelberg Castle
• Cologne Cathedral

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

Translated from German by Alexander Luckmann

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