What do you think of 'restoration' of historical structures and artifacts?

Yes, otherwise they'll eventually just disappear. It seems less romantic for us when it happens in the present but ancient societies also had leaders who would engage in restoration projects, and I'd argue most historians are grateful for those efforts.

It happened all the time throughout history, I don't see why it shouldn't continue. For example, this is what Fondaco de Turchi in Venice looked like before being restored, I dare anyone to say it would have been more suggestive to keep this wreck in the middle of the city.
If you ask me, I'm all for the project to rebuild the lost Palmira landmarks using 3D-printed blocks.

Yes, but with contemporary multi-cultural input.

This.

forts have been restored for the entirety of their existence, just use the methods of the time they've been built

restoration is not the same as preservation. But to answer Op's question, no, it should not be allowed. What should be done is preservation, trying to keep it in the state it is in, and prevent it from degrading further. But this restoration is just plain bullshit, it is not the same structure anymore, you basically fucked it up, might as well demolish it completely and build it from the ground up

>China restores ancient Athens
>Everything made of that fake plastic gold
>Proportions are mismatched, every Tympan looking like a bloated balloon, every capital having half the detailing it should have.
>Lights everywhere.
>Nasal whiny songs blaring over loudspeakers.

It would be glorious.

just needs Apple ear-pods or whatever the fuck they call them, and a bottle of kombucha standing next to it.

whoever did that should be shot.

>restored with contemporary techniques that are decidedly historical now.

It's A E S T H E T I C but still a shame because its distracting from the untouched ruins. Those ancient pillars left as they were would be a reminder of how old the world is, civilization is, and what can go wrong. Perhaps living right around ancient ruins is too sobering?

Damn

The last sentence killed me, thanks for getting tea all over myself.

Let me remind you reality is worse than nightmares.

Arab countries do something near to this to Persian or Mesopotamian ruins all the time.

I like the idea of recreating them elsewhere. I do think, though, that seeing the great pyramids restored to their shining white brilliance would be really neat.

I like the idea of building something even greater than historical buildings

Isn't Saddam one of the worst offenders of this?

Since he pretty much built a replica all over the old ruins of Babylon and with that would destroy anything left of them while burying old artifacts even further.
And half of the time the replica's would be worse than the original or not even finished.

Hell, he even built a palace in the style of Sumerian architecture over the ruins of the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar.

3D printed blocks are retarded. In 5 years, they would become ugly plastic ruins.
Way to honor the stone city that travelled through the millenia.

Only it's needed to prevent further deterioration, or if it's something like anastylosis that's as 'authentic' as possible.

WHAT IS THIS FOUL FREAK OF NATURE?

WHAT HAS SCIENCE WROUGHT?

YES. Given that good care to detail is made using original material. Ive seen some shitty ass restoriations in Angkor where some obvious details were missing

>Lego figure Hitler on the right

basically this. i don't care either way but i imagine people would be fine with ongoing maintenance from the time of its construction but not full restoration for some reason

It depends. There is a fine line between restoration and building things from your imagination.
My stance would be yes, but only in the event that you know exactly what it was and how it was built. Otherwise, a restoration is akin to destroying any doubts a person could have to explore.

youtube.com/watch?v=8aCFppygoCw

For the sake of argument, restoration generally brings in way more tourist dollars, and those funds can then be used for further conservation. Tourism itself can damage sites that are just preserved, for example tourism has damaged the Tomb of King Tut to the point that it'll soon be closed off and instead tourists will only see a 3D-printed replica;

youtu.be/hooUIumZQjk?t=407

And maybe its just me but "a facsimile made identical to the original at normal viewing distance" still takes something out of the experience.

A restoration is at least partly original and isn't so delicate as to be completely fenced to anyone not an archaeologist with a phd.

There's actually a rebuilt Parthenon in Nasvhille, Tennessee. They have an art museum inside - it's kind of neat.

They even rebuilt the statue of Athena.

Greeks and Romans had no concept of aesthetics, did they?

their are fulfilled a different purpose. that athena is terrifying -- imagine seeing sculptures like those everywhere in the only places you would ever live. you'd start believing that those gods have a presence in the world back then like you'd think white girls only like black guys today

We can 3D print concrete and metal now.

Friendly reminder that the colors we found on the statues were base coats. Details, smoother colors and shadows were applied on them.

These reproductions only show the dominant colors, and thus appear ugly.

It's funny how their sculptures are so unlike modern greek people. They were painted those colors but I bet the genetics of Greece, Spain, and Italy have been altered by the constant invasion and occupation of the Moors in Spain and the Ottoman empire in Italy and Greece.

Would doing something like building the lighthouse of Alexandria, the cities of Troy, Carthage and so on, stuff that's only there in location?

Most civilizations are developed by people who are closer to tanned swedes and norwegians.

"No"

My neighbor was greek and he looked like one of those carved statues. He had black curly hair and blue eyes and similar physique. His face was sharply cut like old greek statues. His family was from the more mountainous parts of greece and I think they weren't affected so much by the Ottoman occupation. When the Ottoman empire finally crumbled most of the greeks were greasy kebab people.

...

>in italy
i wonder who could be behind this post

In Hungary the governement launched a castle reconstruction prgramme few years ago, parallel with a manor & chateau reconstruction too.

The prototype works already finished (1 castle and 1 manor) and planning and preparation has advanced on other sites.

32 castles and about 50 noble residences are included in the programme, including the Budapest royal complex itself.

Do you realize that those statues were idolized versions of both the human physique and facial A E S T H E T I C S ? Some Greeks might look statuesque but most of them, like most people, are a bunch of ugly mugs.

How dare you
China's replica of Paris is glorious!

>China wouldn't be able to pull of a realistic reconstruction even if they put in the resource of 10 Beijing Olympics.
Actually much of the Forbidden City is restoration. Between the fleeing of the Last Emperor and the Cultural Revolution, pagodas have fallen down and the walls were being looted by the nearby hutongs for building materials. Even the flagstones of the famous courtyard in front of the Hall of Supreme Harmony was taken, with vegetation growing underneath.

The detail of the restoration work began in the 70s was performed to be as accurate as possible, down to the intricate wooden joinery on the roofs whose art was literally dying until the government located a very old fucking guy still doing such carpentry in the boonies for the restoration work.

jesus fuck. why?

that's so small...

Y'all niggers should check out the Guédelon Castle.

>Guédelon Castle is a construction project located in Treigny, France. The object of the project is to build a castle using only the techniques and materials used in the Middle Ages. When completed in the 2020s, it should be an authentic recreation of a 13th-century medieval castle.

>In order to fully investigate the technology required in the past, the project is using only period construction techniques, tools, and costumes. Materials, including wood and stone, are all obtained locally. Jacques Moulin is the chief architect for the project. He designed the castle according to the architectural model developed during the 12th and 13th centuries by Philip II of France.

>The project has created 55 jobs and is now a tourist destination, with more than 300,000 visits each year.

Don´t forget it also won the Architizer A+ award for "architecture and preservation"

Honestly if they want yes if people want to destroy their own heritage that is up to them. Now I do ask they at least document everything before defining it.

I don't think they should be restored
but i think they should be maintained enough so they don't fall together

That's cool af
>you will never be a stonemason working on a medieval castle in the idyllic French countryside

Restoration criteria, niggers. The restored parts HAVE to be able to be told apart from the original parts. It's a XXI-cenury restoration, not a XIX-centuty "let's rebuild it to our romantic standards" reconstruction.

You can love it or you can hate it, but this IS the reason.

Yes.

that would require some parts to be restored

I actually quite like this. It allows one to picture how the tower would have originally looked.

Bollox, restorations should be as silent as possible.By your criteria, ancient buildings will slowly transform into totally different structures as they are reconstructed

>Bollox

Well, you could be one for a week. They accept volunteers. You just have to be older than 16.

guedelon.fr/fr/comment-participer-aux-travaux_40.html

>"No special skill is needed: only goodwill, the desire to learn, and interest in the project are necessary"

You should hurry up though, they're almost done. I remembered going there as a kid, it's crazy to think how far they've gone. It's not a huge castle, but still.

youtube.com/watch?v=cOVo6bGMUS4

The more historical significance an object has the least it should be restored.

Example:
Random medieval fort: Should be restored to the fullest extent

Priceless ancient monument: Should never be restored

That's completely different from restorations like this
those towers have no aesthetic value and have a purely historical value, completely replacing the original structure destroys that value

>What kind of restoration do you want, great wall of china?
>just cement my shit up