Western and Eastern Building Conservation Philosophies: Perspectives on Permanence and Impermanence

ABSTRACT

In this conceptual article, we illuminate Western building conservation philosophy practice with insights into Eastern conservation philosophy and associated aesthetic understanding. We frame dialogue recognizing individual and societal perspectives on treatments to buildings that attempt to attain “permanence” or “impermanence” in form, fabric, and artifact. Although not expressly sharing origins, Eastern and Western conservation philosophies practically yield commensurate or quasi approaches in intervention. These similarities have not been notably articulated before, and reveal meaningful insights for decision heuristics and guidance fundamental for repair scheme design and intervention. Western, pattern-based views relating to philosophical reasons around the impossibility of perfection, or “correctness” in physical building form resonate with Eastern views supported by Kiku Kiwari. Moreover, universality in acceptance of Western Patina and Eastern Wabi-Sabi, and Eastern Kintsugi and Western legible fabric repair convey overt signals of philosophies beyond technical performance. Moreover, we find Western bias toward “tangibility”, and greater appreciation of “intangibility” in Eastern approaches that are culturally enriching and go beyond mere retention of fabric and architectural form, linking building memory with territory. We suggest potential cross-fertilisation of thinking to create an environment of greater cultural understanding of the motives, thoughts, and practices in East and West.

KEYWORDS:

• Building philosophies
• conservative repair
• fabric intervention
• permanence and impermanence
• restoration; Western and Eastern

Notes

¹ By “Western” we principally refer to concepts and philosophies associated with the UK and Europe.

² By “Eastern” we principally refer to concepts and philosophies associated with Japan even though many of them (e.g., Kintsugi) had non-local origins in the region (Gopnik 2009; Paine and Soper 1960; Takagi 2012) and that tensions within the region remain (e.g., Sino preference for symmetry being disharmonious to the traditional Japanese aesthetic (Keene 1972)).

³ Notably, Japan considered aesthetics to be so intrinsically bound up in the meaning of artifacts that the abstract term “Bigaku” (美学) was not coined until 1883 when it became necessary so that Cultural Properties could be debated with Westerners, who relied on Hegel’s ästhetik lens; the science of the fine arts (Richie 2007).

⁴ We recognize that Kintsugi and Kintsukuroi differ in their use of materials, but given the similar appearance and aesthetic meaning, for ease of readability we hereafter use the term Kintsugi.