Critical restoration vs. mimetic restoration
Restoration has always been at the center of a complex reflection that involves aesthetics, ethics, technique and history. Two fundamental approaches have been confronted over time: mimetic restoration and critical restoration. Mimetic restoration, widespread between the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, aims to restore the visual unity of the work through reconstructions that integrate perfectly with the original parts. The idea is to erase the signs of time, recreating a coherent and continuous image, even when it comes to hypothetical reconstructions.
This type of restoration has given rise to important interventions, but it has often been criticized for the risk of falsifying the history of the work and confusing what is original with what is modern. Starting in the 1930s, and more systematically after the war, the opposite approach took shape: critical restoration, theorized in Italy by Cesare Brandi with his "Theory of Restoration" (1963). For Brandi, every intervention must be motivated by a careful and conscious reading of the work. Restoration is not a neutral operation, but a critical act. Reintegration must be distinguishable, reversible, and motivated. The aim is not to erase time, but to accompany it, recognize it, and restore the work to its legibility without altering its authenticity.
Carlo Scarpa fits into this critical vision. In his interventions - from the Castelvecchio Museum to the Querini Stampalia, from the Correr Museum to the Gypsoteca di PossagnoScarpa never tries to camouflage modern additions. On the contrary, he makes them visible, dialoguing, often also openly contemporary in terms of materials, finishes, and geometries. His is a design restoration, which interprets the historical work as a living, stratified system, capable of being read through an intelligent and measured intervention.
Castelvecchio is emblematic: Scarpa recovers the structure of the medieval castle, highlights its construction phases, and inserts modern stairs, supports for works, and narrative paths. Nothing is mimetic, everything is respectful and at the same time inventive. The same is true for Querini Stampalia, where the new dialogues with the old without wanting to hide it. And at the Correr, where museography becomes a critical tool for recounting the past.
At a time when restoration is once again at the center of cultural and architectural debate, Scarpa's lesson remains as relevant as ever. It teaches us that restoring is not going back, but moving forward with awareness.
