Foreword: The Venice Charter at Fifty | FRANK G. MATERO

Foreword: The Venice Charter at Fifty | FRANK G. MATERO

2014 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Second International Congress of Architects and Technicians of Historic Monuments and the adoption of the International Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites, known today as the Venice Charter. Thirty-three years earlier, the First International Congress met in 1931 in Athens to rescue the field of heritage conservation from the inherited polarities of nineteenthcentury restoration and preservation to a mediated view of the past as series of discreet histories, distinct from the present. It was, however, in 1964 at the Second Congress that the concept of universal heritage was further refined as the totality of unique expressions within each country’s own cultural traditions. Such complexities were no doubt amplified in response to the wholesale destruction in postwar Europe and the increasing expansion of heritage classifications.
Today, contemporary conservation still holds to the principles of the Venice Charter, while also arguing that value and significance are culturally determined, a point clearly stated in the preamble of the original Venice Charter. In recent decades a number of principles and assumptions in the Venice Charter have been challenged as our definitions of cultural heritage have changed and our relationship to that heritage has evolved. Social, economic, technological, and cultural changes demand that we critically examine the Venice Charter and its influences. In 2006 scholars and practitioners returned to Venice to redress the charter and its legacy on its fortieth anniversary. Now, ten years later, at its centenary, it is time again to reconsider the inherited tenets of heritage conservation as codified in the Venice Charter, especially given current postmodern challenges in not only defining what heritage is, but how it has been used (and abused), interpreted, and displayed.
The papers presented in this special issue of Change Over Time are the final result of a two-day international symposium held on April 2–3, 2014 and cosponsored by US/ICOMOS and The Graduate Program in Historic Preservation, School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
Frank Matero, Conference Co-Chair