Restorations in post-war period

Abstract

Abstract The choice of the monument care methodology depends not only on the preference of the author of the restoration or the opinion of a professional monument commission, but also on the state in which the historic building is and historical stages it developed through. After the Second World War, much of the architectural historical heritage in the territory of the former Czechoslovakia was devastated, and the then professional society faced challenges of how to restore and preserve these destroyed buildings. The following article explains the starting points and selected methods of post-war monument care on the example of three churches in the former Czechoslovakia. Buildings selected for comparison originated in approximately the same epoch, underwent a rather complex building developments, and the extent of their damage was also similar. Specifically, we focus on the Church of St. Catherine of Alexandria in Handlová, the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Bíňa and the Church of the Virgin Mary and the Holy Slavic Patrons in Prague. Although the three compared cases show similarities, different restoration methodologies were used. The majority opinion of the then professional public tended towards reconstructing historic buildings to the state before their destruction, as is also evident in the cases being compared. Nevertheless, each of the churches is restored with some deviations from the original condition. In the case of the church in Bíňa, we follow traces of a purist reconstruction, in Prague we witness a restoration by indicative reconstruction, also applied in Handlová, where, moreover, the methodology of reconstruction to the state before destruction was completely abandoned. Our ambition is to point out the diversity of opinion in the care of monuments, which at that time saw a change in paradigm and began to accept authors’ new inputs while preserving the historical essence of the building.