Un panel sobre cómo restaurar edificios antiguos con honestidad

Opiniones y actitud

1. b) In what sense a much-repaired building remains the same buildingInes pregunta en qué sentido un edificio muy reparado sigue siendo el mismo edificio.
2. b) He has held and argued this view for many yearsDa a entender que la pregunta lo ha ocupado durante décadas.
3. a) Skilful hidden repair destroys evidence of the wall's historyDice que una grieta es una prueba, y que rellenarla de forma invisible destruye un documento por motivos decorativos.
4. b) It is fine in theory but impractical for buildings that must stay in useQuiere decir que los edificios en uso necesitan reparaciones continuas, así que su regla es costosa e impracticable.
5. a) A ruin is at least honest about its conditionLe devuelve la pulla: prefiere el deterioro honesto a una reparación disimulada.
6. c) Repair marked so that new work can be told from oldUsaría madera nueva y le grabaría la fecha para que la obra nueva se vea.
7. a) Visible repairs can make a building look like a patchworkDice que un edificio que anuncia cada reparación se convierte en un mosaico de remiendos y puede distraer.
8. c) Priya finds it reassuring, but Quentin thinks it is a false argumentPriya dice que la identidad reside en la continuidad del cuidado; Quentin lo llama sofisma y dice que la sucesión no es supervivencia.

Detalles clave

1. forgeryLo llama falsificación, por hermosa que sea.
2. sacksDice que se construyó para mantener la lluvia lejos de los sacos.
3. two hundred / 200Dice que ha seguido adelante durante doscientos años.
4. dateDice que grabes la fecha en la viga.
5. lawnDice que la vista puede descansar en un césped.
6. survivalTermina diciendo que la sucesión no es supervivencia.

Ines: Good evening. One question tonight: when a historic building has been repaired so often that little of the original remains, in what sense is it still the same building? My guests are Quentin Baird, a conservator who has spent his career preserving old stonework, and Doctor Priya Nair, an architect who restores buildings for modern use. Quentin, you look as though you've been waiting for this.

Quentin: I've been waiting since about nineteen ninety. My position is simple. A building is a record, and a record that has been rewritten is a forgery, however handsome. If a medieval wall has a crack in it, the crack is evidence of what happened to the wall. Fill it so skilfully that nobody can tell, and you have destroyed a document in order to produce a decoration.

Priya: That is a wonderful argument for a museum and a rather expensive one for a town hall. Buildings are not records. They are tools that happen to be beautiful. The grain exchange I'm working on now was never meant to be admired. It was meant to keep rain off sacks, and it has carried on doing that for two hundred years only because somebody kept replacing the bits that rotted. If we had followed Quentin's rule, it would be a very distinguished heap.

Quentin: I would point out that a distinguished heap tells the truth.

Priya: So does a bus timetable, and nobody wants to live in one.

Ines: Quentin, is there any repair you would accept?

Quentin: Of course. Repair that is honest. If a beam has to be replaced, use new timber and cut the date into it, so that a visitor in the next century can see exactly what is old and what is ours. What I object to is the quiet substitution, where new work is dressed up to look ancient, and everybody is invited to admire a joke that nobody admits to making.

Priya: On that I'm with him, though I'd add something he won't enjoy. Honesty has a price. A building that announces every repair becomes a patchwork, and some visitors find it distracting. There is a case for letting the eye rest.

Quentin: The eye can rest on a lawn.

Ines: Let me raise the cost, since someone always does.

Quentin: Someone always does, and it is usually the person who will not be paying. Neglect is also expensive; it merely sends the invoice to the next generation.

Ines: There's an old puzzle about a ship whose planks are replaced one by one until none is original. Does either of you find it useful?

Priya: I find it comforting. It suggests that identity lies in continuity of care rather than in material.

Quentin: I find it a sophism. The ship has not been preserved. It has been succeeded. And succession, however loving, is not the same thing as survival.

Ines: Neither of you has convinced the other, which I take as the sign of a good discussion. Thank you both.