Theory in Architectural Restoration - Concept and Object

Abstract

The concern to preserve the architectural heritage, for as long as a century and a half, has accumulated a wide series of theoretical positions, which have been used to lead the work aimed to safeguard this architecture. However, even now, many contradictions are observed in the results along the practices, grouping up these results into three general trends: "consistent", "apparent" and "indifferent". Hence, the theoretical framework in the present work is established to carry out and show the synthesis of the statements of Socrates and Karl Popper, inquiring the classical theorists' considerations on what the architectural restoration is and what their focus object should be, so as to demonstrate that in the practice of restoration, a series of assumptions are entangled because of the ambiguities, in the theory of the discipline, as much as in the definition and delimitation of the focus object, and even in the dispute, between quite a few areas of the human activity. Because of the nature of this theoretical analysis, the method used to carry it out follows the critical rationalism.