Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye, Muche’s Haus am Horn, Gropius‘s Meisterhäuser and the Bauhaus building, as well as the Stuttgart Weissenhof estate: these celebrated icons of classic modernity are declared and preserved monuments. Built 100 years ago, they now present themselves with radiant elegance, as if time had stood still, as if nothing had happened since. That is surprising if one considers the difficulties with which the period was confronted for decades: discredited and disfigured during the National Socialist period, damaged during the war, subjected to makeshift repairs, converted pragmatically, and left to decades of neglect. Thus, reports express an according pride in the extensive refurbishment of such modern incunabula, as they rise “like a phoenix from the ashes” and present themselves with new splendour. The buildings no longer reveal their complex history (at least in Europe). They all appear young, fresh and timeless.

The expression of timelessness was an intended aspect of modern design. It was based on the desire for abstraction and reduction to key qualities, as well as stepping away from traditional developments. The result was above all a “pure” form that had been freed of what was regarded as unnecessary ornamentation. Buildings constructed in that spirit, including their detailed solutions, were more akin to symbolic manifestos than highly developed solutions to constructive problems. Thus, longevity was not on their agenda. On the contrary: the progressive avant-garde, specifically Antonio Sant’Elia (1888-1916) in his Manifesto of Futurist Architecture, which he published in 1914, declared that impermanence and transience were fundamental characteristics of futurist architecture: “Things will endure less than us. Every generation must build its own city.”1

Nevertheless, countless buildings constructed by the modern movement have stood the test of time and are now monuments that are painstakingly preserved and restored to prevent their decline. From the perspective of preservation authorities, the demand by Sant’Elia for a natural expiry date (or even the requirement that the subsequent generation should destroy the past) is not in fact a criterion. As declared monuments, the constructed heritage belongs to the general public, rather than its authors. Monument preservation is therefore the duty to also preserve these buildings for future generations. One way or another, that notion stands as the highest premise in any monument-preservation law.  

Document or monument?

Instead of asking “whether” to preserve, maintain and restore, the question is “how” to do it. In the late 19th century, the idea emerged that a monument is more than its original architectural core and that later temporal layers can also become elements worth preserving. This notion was a reaction to the standard practice of the time of purifying, reconstructing restoration, as practised by Eugéne Viollet-le-Duc (1814-79). While his top priority was to make the original artwork visible again,2 others were of the opinion that what the building had experienced over the years was also important. For instance, the pioneer of monument theory Georg Dehio (1850-1932) pointed to the “dual nature” of the monument, being both an artistic monument and a historical document. The motto he derived, namely, “preservation, not restoration”, which should today read as “preservation, not reconstruction”, has been widely adopted.3 In theory at least, there is general agreement that monuments should be passed on to subsequent generations “in the full richness of their authenticity”, that “the valid contributions of all periods to the building of a monument must be respected since unity of style is not the aim of a restoration”, as the Venice Charter has postulated since 1964. How can it be, then, that it is no longer applied whenever modern buildings are concerned?4

In truth, it is not so easy to highlight the historical and aesthetic merits of a monument both simultaneously and equally. Often enough, one set of values overlaps with the other. Among icons of modernity, hardly any have survived ageing unscathed. The precarious condition in which they found themselves over the years is not only down to neglect, but also due to the original building fabric. Countless buildings show serious defects, some of which were caused by the applied experimental approach to construction and materials. Furthermore, some building damage was the result of the decision to do without functional elements in favour of pure form.

Answers to such questions must also be found during restoration. Is the original fabric important despite its shortcomings? Is not perhaps the imperfection of architecture in a way an authentic part of the monument and therefore valuable as a document? Especially in the case of supposedly perfect modernist buildings? What takes priority, the document, or the monument? How much substance does the image require?

For Viollet-le-Duc, the answer would have been clear: he regarded the monument’s significance to lie in the idea it embodied, not its building substance. Thus, he believed it was legitimate even to undertake improvements and use-related adaptive measures. He recommended, “putting oneself in the position of the builder and asking oneself what he would have done if he had entered our world and needed to solve the building task.”5 And that is precisely how the first restoration measures on modernist buildings were implemented in the 1970s and 1980s. In addition to recreating their original appearance, the technical and structural improvement of such buildings was part of the preservation goals. In fact, no great value was attributed to the original fabric. This was based on the idea that the buildings were designed to consist of serially produced, standardised elements. However, the crux of the matter was that in fact, those celebrated icons were often not built that way: as experimental and model buildings, they were more often produced using traditional methods and craftsmanship even if their appearance suggests otherwise. Thus, the first preservation measures entailed major losses of original building fabric. Only with increasing historical distance and more differentiated research of the period did the original fabric gradually gain the right to remain.

Naturally, opposing opinions exist. As early as 1849, John Ruskin (1819-1900), the English doyen of monument theory, strongly argued that the practice of reconstructive restoration (as was typical in the 19th century) can lead to “the most total destruction which a building can suffer”.6 Too much fabric is lost, wherein the actual “spirit” of the building lies. Thus it must be preserved for as long as possible through continuous, diligent care, but only up to a certain point. Substantial damage to the building or lost building elements should not be repaired operatively through reconstruction: “bind it together with iron where it loosens; stay it with timber where it declines; do not care about the unsightliness of the aid: better a crutch than a lost limb.”7

This demand encapsulates Ruskin’s underlying stance towards the monument, which he regarded as a living organism that is just as mortal as humans: “Its evil day must come at last; but let it come declaredly and openly, and let no dishonouring and false substitute deprive it of the funeral offices of memory.”8 The concept is difficult to endure: are the Parthenon and the Villa Savoye as mortal as humans? Should not art live forever?

The desire for eternal youth

The irrational human wish for eternal life was also a literary theme at the time of Ruskin and Viollet-le-Duc. In Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, the protagonist possesses a portrait of himself that ages in his stead. While his appearance remains flawlessly young and beautiful, his portrait deteriorates over the years into hideous ugliness, reflecting all the negative characteristics that the human Dorian Gray appropriated through his reckless behaviour (including murder). Wilde, who had been taught by Ruskin at Oxford, uses history to discuss and question the morality of sensuality, hedonism and decadence, while at the same time criticising the aestheticism of the fin de siècle. In his Foreword, consisting of a compilation of powerful aphorisms, he calls for a sphere outside morality, in which art can exist. It echoes the debate among symbolists on l’art pour l’art, which may also play a role in the case of classic modern buildings. As icons, they are more symbolic than living (and therefore also ageing) elements of life. Is classic modernity such an unchangeable space for art, detached from the world?

The Spanish artist Andrés Jacque picks up on this aspect of being captured in eternity with his work PHANTOM: Mies as Rendered Society. It discusses the Barcelona Pavilion by Mies van der Rohe, which was reconstructed in 1986. At the time, the building’s reconstruction meticulously followed the original plans, apart from a key addition: the insertion of a basement intended as a backstage area to facilitate the building’s maintenance and upkeep. It accommodated all the profane elements that could undermine the artwork’s “frozen in time” effect: thus the basement is akin to the portrait of Dorian Gray, concealing the building’s ageing process: it stows away broken Travertine slabs, faded velvet curtains, relics of former events and abundant cleaning agents – which have now been drawn out into the light in Jacque’s art project.

In truth, the strategy of creating a space that is detached from the world does not work, neither in practical restoration work on buildings, nor in Oscar Wilde’s novel, since the protagonist's demise is precisely the result of confusing art and life too often. The figure of Dorian Gray also echoes Narcissus: Like Narcissus, Wilde’s protagonist removes himself so far from real life that he must ultimately die. His beauty eventually leads to his death. Does the same apply to the icons of modernity? Does their eternal youth and beauty mean their death, or are they not their actual value?

Patina or flaw?

The newness, or rather the apparently new quality of white modernity is indeed a key element of its art. It is part of its artistic DNA and is even encapsulated in its name: modernity is by definition the opposite of old, “modern” in this sense also means: always new, seemingly timeless. But buildings are no longer timeless when they show traces of time. We readily accept as part of history the signs of ageing on other buildings from different periods and genres, such as industrial buildings, where patina is almost a must-have, yet it is only perceived as a disturbance on modern buildings. Part of their modernity is based on breaking with traditional forms of construction and structural elements, unfortunately including those that have a considerable protective function, such as splash-guard plinths, windowsills, downpipes and projecting roofs. In that respect, they age more quickly and less beautifully. A plaster or concrete façade can hardly age with as much dignity as a natural stone façade. The latter’s patina becomes the former’s flaw; dirt is an ugly sign of ageing.

The only place where patina is tolerated in modern buildings is the interior, where patina is even aestheticised. Unlike the exterior plaster, flooring made of linoleum or Triolin, wooden handrails and brass door knobs age with a sublimity that even seems required, showing due respect for the building’s achievement. Interiors are allowed to radiate historicity. In them, one can sense the aura and imagine how the masters paced through the rooms 100 years ago. Outwardly however, in this country, white modernist icons are subjected to restoration measures that amount to a comprehensive “facelift”. What has long been neglected and misunderstood is now finally given a new sheen – allowing it to become an icon again. It is precisely this theme – the desecration of the icon – that the Brussel-based artist Xavier Delory engages with as he imagines Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye as a ruin that has fallen victim to vandalism. The Photoshop trompe l’oeil effect is startling – one does indeed regard it as Sacrilege, the title of the piece.

Delory’s work is more than mere provocation; it criticises the deification and museumisation of modern architecture. Le Corbusier’s villa, built as the best possible architectural expression of functionality, is now merely an icon, an art object – without function, l’art pour l’art. In such cases, it is perhaps a good thing, since, from the perspective of the family that owned it, the building’s functionality was never convincing. In the letters of complaint that Madame Savoye wrote to Corbusier in 1936, she protests to the architect about the poor quality of the building fabric: “It rains in the hall, it rains on the steps and the garage wall is drenched. Even worse, it is still raining in my bathroom. In poor weather, it is virtually flooded, since the water even flows in through the skylight. Once and for all, you will have to accept the fact that the house is simply uninhabitable.” Aware of the icon he had created, Corbusier nevertheless ignored the stated flaws and instead recommended that the owner should “place a guest book in the lower hallway. […] You shall see how quickly you gather a number of prominent autographs.”9

The architect’s failure to remove building flaws meant that after the end of Wold War II, during which time it had first been occupied by German and then by US troops, the villa was not reoccupied by the Savoye family. Until its restoration (1985-97), the building’s poor construction, combined with years of neglect, had virtually left the building in the condition imagined by Delory.

In the mid-1960s, the Swiss architect Bernhard Tschumi visited the villa and described it as dilapidated, stinking and covered in graffiti. However, he did not consider the condition to be negative. On the contrary, he believed the building had “never been more moving” than in this vulnerable and fading state. Thus, he included the decaying icon precisely in that condition in his polemic Advertisements for Architecture,X advertising it with the slogan: “The most architectural thing about this building is the state of decay in which it is.” The caption then states the following: “Architecture only survives where it negates the form that society expects of it. Where it negates itself by transgressing the limits that history has set for it.” 

Newness Value or Age Value?

Perhaps not literally or not consciously, Tschumi argues in the spirit of Alois Riegl (1858-1905), a contemporary of Georg Dehio and other seminal figures of monument theory. Published in 1903, his work Der moderne Denkmalkultus (“The Modern Cult of the Monument”) differentiates between the levels of significance that can inherently exist in a monument. One of them is the term coined as “Alterswert” (“age value”), which he regarded to be among the commemorative values, along with the historical value.10 In a sense, it is the counterpart to the artistic or “newness value” (“Neuheitswert”), which addresses the creative performance as such and is achieved through the erosive work of nature – weathering and patina.

It becomes tangible as a value in the reverence people experience when encountering old, perhaps already dilapidated buildings. Perceiving them makes one conscious of the process of creation and decay, as well as one’s own impermanence; the result is a kind of memento mori. In view of this, today’s restorations of historical buildings generally also leave traces of ageing and even preserve them as their own layer of heritage.

Not so with icons of modernity, however. The age value defined by Riegl and demonstrated by Tschumi in the decaying Villa Savoye not only plays no part, but is also negated, even by established monument theoreticians: in 1990, Marion Wohlleben (1946-2001), who was otherwise committed to conservational, substance-preserving monument preservation, argued in a Swiss-themed issue on dealing with modernist heritage that in the case of this (at the time) still new genre of monuments, it is justifiable to, “turn away from the maxim of preservation, according to which the traces of history and ageing form part of the monument, just as its material and formal qualities.” Her reasoning behind this was the, “absolutely uniqueness with which the architecture of Neues Bauen set itself apart from its predecessors.”11 She claimed that Riegl’s age value does not apply to buildings of the 1920s, since it contradicts “the essence of this architecture”: for it is generally, “aligned towards geometric stringency, sharp separation of surfaces, clarity, smoothness – in short: precision.” This argument is not particularly convincing, since it also applies to many other periods, above all classic antiquity. Nor is the conclusion that “patina is not taken into account as a dimension in this architecture”. Marion Wohlleben’s argument in support of the primacy of the newness value over the age value must be regarded historically: she belonged to the generation of monument preservation that worked as pioneers, striving to preserve and rehabilitate classic modern heritage, after it had been discredited during the National Socialist years and greatly neglected in the early post-war years. Between the lines, one can discern her desire to make amends when she writes: “leaving the Twenties buildings to the demands of Riegl’s age value” would be tantamount“ to a dual misappropriation of this singular heritage.”12

Demythicising modernity

Today, Wohlleben’s opinion is certainly regarded critically, both with respect to the heroification and the reconstructive practice of restoration. Critical Heritage Studies has begun to accept and even curate the process of decay in buildings from more recent eras, especially those of industrial culture, in order to open up new approaches to this heritage in the spirit of Riegl and for ecological reasons. Such an experimental approach is definitely promising as a conceptual model, since it breaks down traditional preservation practices.13 For individual buildings, it could indeed be an interesting, artistic solution to handle them. As a general approach, however, it does not seem very practicable..

Thus, we see that not only architecture is constantly developing, but also monument preservation, which is so closely connected to it. It is one of the paradoxes of the field that the decisions on handling heritage are requestioned and criticised with each new generation. Monument values and attributions of value are therefore never constant, nor are the resulting conservation approaches and objectives. Just like architecture, monument preservation is subject to cycles and trends and pursues its own approaches in some segments.14

Closer inspection of the way the heritage of classic modernism is handled has shown that monument conservation practice in this field has always been more closely orientated towards Viollet-le-Duc’s focus on image than some might be willing to admit. Nevertheless, with the period’s increasing historicisation, Ruskin’s plea for the value of substance has also become firmly established. Due to the great losses involved, the value of such relics as historical testimonies has risen, some assuming true rarity status. This is why the meticulous conservation of original plaster, glass and colour schemes is carried out as naturally today as would be the case for a medieval building.

Regardless whether dealing with buildings from the modernist or other periods, Ruskin’s emphasis on the natural mortality of buildings (as called for by Sant’Elia for futurist architecture) is not an option, since it contradicts the responsibility of monument preservation to preserve buildings recognised by society as “valuable” for future generations. Thus, all attempts to preserve buildings in their state of youth through constant restoration cannot avoid the smack of embalming. Ultimately, such mummification is a normal process of becoming a classic art object that establishes itself as an emblem of the canon. It helps the objects attain immortality, both in the best and worst sense of the word.

If one can alleviate the unpleasant side effects of immortality, a further development in approaches to monument preservation is apparent in addition to preserving the building’s substance: the demythicisation of the era as a consequence of historicization. The more we research, the more interesting nuances become perceptible, occasionally undermining the perfect image. This leads to a situation where the phoenix’s heroic rise from the ashes is no longer the only conceivable narrative that can be told on and with the architectural monuments. An increasing number of people are becoming interested in the entire history: modernity is no longer just an image of yearning, but also a multifaceted heritage. The task remains to discuss on a case-to-case basis how vigorous that heritage should be.