In May 1964, an international congress of architects and technical professionals was held in Venice. The Second World War had destroyed Europe’s cities and towns, and many countries struggled to rebuild. But how to do it? Should one tear down all the old things that were destroyed, or restore what was damaged back to its origin? And how should one further develop the old buildings that remained after all? The congress participants agreed on some guidelines for how the old and new times should meet. They named the agreement after the city they were in – the Venice Charter. Article 9 of the charter states, among other things, that all new additions to old buildings must be separate from the original building. The professionals wanted the audience to immediately understand what has been created afterwards. Anything else would be dishonest. Let’s take a look at some honest developments built according to the rules of the Venice Charter. Some examples Håkonshallen in Bergen was heavily damaged during the Second World War. A new entrance had to be built where the old one had stood. The old entrance to Håkonshallen was not original, but was built between 1880 and 1895. Photo from 1912. Photo: Anders Beer Wilse / Norwegian Folk Museum The repaired Håkonshallen was completed in 1971 with a modern entrance that differs significantly from the rest of the building. Photo: Matilde Sunde Solsvik / news No one will ever doubt that this stairwell was built in our time. In this sense, Håkonshallen fully fulfills the Venice charter. Vestlandhotellene In Vestlandet, old venerable wooden hotels have been fighting for years to be allowed to release modern extensions. Hotel Union Øye in Norangsdalen on Sunnmøre lasted the longest. For 12 years, the owners fought to be allowed to expand in harmony with the rest of the hotel. In the end they won. In 2022, the new wing was ready to receive guests. The wing on the right in the picture is newly built. Photo: enerhaugen arkitektkontor Hotel Fleischer on Voss was not as steadfast. In 2008, the kitchen caught fire, and something had to be done. The hotel wanted to be built in the original style, but the County Conservator demanded that the new part should be “adaptation by contrast”. Photo: Siv Fossåskaret / news Civil architect Anne Carlsen in Forum arkitekter was mainly responsible for the project at Voss. To Bergens Tidende, she stated the following: – Initially, the hotel owner wanted a copy of the old, but both the County Conservator and we architects believe there should be a clear distinction between the new and the old. Why? – The Venice Charter is not a bad document, says Riksantikvar Hanna Geiran, but it is a product of the 1960s and the spirit of the times that prevailed then. Hanne GeiranRiksantikvar Photo: Håkon Mosvold Larsen / NTB To show this clearly, Geiran brings out a photograph. Photo: unknown photographer / Riksantikvaren The picture shows a demonstration train in Bergen in the 1950s where the demand was that the old pier had to be demolished once and for all. The people of Bergen wanted high-rise buildings and concrete along the quayside, not the rickety wooden houses from the Hansa period. In the 1960s, the past felt outdated and bygone. The future promised practical housing for the population, huge motorways through the city centers and that all new buildings should be modern and streamlined. The melody of the time was “form follows function” rather than unnecessary decoration and ornamentation. In this future-optimistic climate, international guidelines were laid down for the treatment of old architecture. Extensions were to be of our time, regardless of whether the surrounding buildings and surroundings were of ancient origin. The trend was international. The military history museum in Dresden recently got a new extension … Photo: Nick-D / Vwikimedia commons … which presumably inspired the architects behind the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada as well. Photo: Maksim Sokolov (Maxergon) And the word that embraces this is contrast. What does the charter actually say? – The contrasts in the Venice charter are a bit woolly, says Samuel Feragen. He is an architect and university lecturer in the subject group Building Protection and Transformation at the Department of Architecture and Technology at NTNU. Samuel FeragenUniversitetslektorPhoto: NTNU To make the debate difficult, there are two official versions of the Venice Charter, the French and the English, and they are not the same, says Feragen. In the French agreement, the word “contrast” does not appear in Article 9. The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam has been given a modern extension. Photo: John Lewis Marshall / Wikimedia commons It does, however, in the English version. It says that the new building must be … «distinct from the architectural composition». The port authorities in Antwerp needed larger premises. Photo: Torsade de Pointes / Vokimedia Commons The French version of the charter is more spacious. It only says that new construction must bear the stamp of our times. – The background for this point in the Venice charter is honesty towards the public, says Feragen. People should not be tricked into thinking that something is old. – So Nidaros Cathedral is a dishonest building, then? Nidaros Cathedral 1857. Photo: unknown photographer / Wikimedia commons Nidaros Cathedral today. Photo: Kjartan Ovesen / news I ask this because large parts of our national treasure in Trondheim are not from the Middle Ages, as it appears, but were built between 1869 and 1983 when the last statue on the west front was put in place. It is Bob Dylan’s face that is the starting point for “Archangel Michael” at Nidaros Cathedral. The angel was modeled by Kristofer Leirdal. Photo: J. Morten Dreier / Flickr.com It feels a little strange to call the magnificent cathedral a dishonest or immoral building, but Feragen confirms that it would hardly have been restored as it appears now, if the Venice Charter had existed at the time . Notre Dame In the course of ten years, Europe has lost two of its most important buildings to fire – Notre Dame in Paris and the Stock Exchange in Copenhagen. Should the buildings be restored back to the way they were? If so – which point in history should one choose? In the case of Notre Dame, the old cathedral in Paris had already been remodeled by the famous architect Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc. He designed a new spire, which was completed in 1859. What should one choose after the fire? The original church as it appeared 200 years ago, or the church with Viollet-le-Duc’s imaginative spire? The choice fell on the latter. It is this church building that people remember from before the fire, even though the church itself is many hundreds of years old. At the same time, Feragen maintains that a supranational agreement on cultural heritage and architecture has been, and is, important. There are many technical clauses in the Venice Charter that everyone can agree on. In addition, the world’s cultural heritage needs international protection, and the charter works well as a guide. – However, it is up to each country to interpret what is in the text, says Feragen. – So there is room for maneuver in the charter? – Yes of course. There has been deliberate room for interpretation. Each nation must treat the text in its own way. – Have we practiced a strict interpretation in this country? – I think it is correct to say that we have not opened up to discuss the scope that already exists in the text, says Samuel Feragen. Are we changing? The Venice Charter has shaped the world over the past 60 years. Although the charter deals with new construction in culturally historic surroundings, it has also been used as a defense that everything that is built new should look modern. The ICOMOS International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) was founded in 1965 following the 1964 UNESCO meeting in Venice where the Venice Charter was drafted. The charter has been described as the organisation’s constitution. ICOMOS’ task is to work to preserve world heritage and act as advisers to UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee. The organisation’s members are different from UNESCO’s non-independent nations, but consist of organisations, institutions and personal members who are professional actors in the field of cultural heritage. Today, the organization has around 7,500 members. In 2015, a discussion arose over Article 9 of the Venice Charter. The background was the reconstruction of Timbuktu in Mali. Rebels had destroyed the ancient mausoleums in the legendary desert city in 2012. Could the mausoleums be rebuilt as they looked before the destruction? Would they still be on the World Heritage List then? The answer from Unesco, the body in the UN that manages cultural monuments, was yes. Mali received approval to build new copies of its old monuments. The case of Dresden The city of Dresden in Germany was badly damaged during the war. It was rebuilt in a modern style while the city was in the GDR. After the unification of East and West Germany, Dresden has once again been transformed, this time back to the bygone era before the bombs fell. Today, the city is referred to as one of the most beautiful in Europe, but it was removed from the World Heritage List in 2009 because the city is not original, but a new copy of its old self. Other “new old buildings” internationally have also been accepted as world heritage by Unesco, despite the fact that they were built much later than they pretend to be. The castle in Carcassonne in France was built up from ruins in the middle of the 19th century. The architect behind the renovation chose to build the castle as he thought it should look. Carcassonne has been fighting for many years to be recognized as a world heritage site. They were allowed to enter the list in 1997 despite the modernization. Photo: Chensiyuan / Wikimedia Commons Back at Riksantikvar Hanna Geiran shows me an example of what she believes is a successful, newly built entrance – the universal entrance at Akershus fortress. Photo: Trond A. Isaksen / Riksantikvaren – There is no doubt that this was made in our time, but at the same time it fits into the whole without shouting, says the Riksantikvaren. When I ask what she thinks about the Venice Charter’s meaning now, she replies that we are seeing a clear shift in the interpretation of the text. – No two cultural monuments are the same, and we have to assess what is right in each case. Older cultural environments are much more important than architects and others realizing what is at all times “our time” in the historic building environments, she says. She is supported by her own employees. Leidulf Mydland, who is responsible for spatial planning and the environment at the National Archives, stated this at a conference in 2023: – Contrasts were telling stories, honest and in line with the Venice Charter. I wouldn’t say we regret it, but it’s been 60 years now. The charter is approaching retirement age. Because it may seem as if the pendulum is swinging away from strict functionalism now. – The architecture revolt has contributed to this, says Samuel Feragen at NTNU. Now he meets new architecture students who want to draw beautiful facades with classical composition. This was unthinkable just a few years ago. Hi, If you have any thoughts about what you’ve read, or input on other things I should write about, then send me an e-mail. 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The Venice Charter and the meeting between new and old architecture – Culture
