Restoration is not conservation...

Abstract

On April 20, 2022, during a work mission carried out within the scope of the Capes Print Program to Italy, I met for the last time with Professor Giovanni Carbonara, in Rome, in a cafe in front of the Basilica of Saint Clement. A few months earlier, in December 2021, the translation into Portuguese, carried out by me and Yan Cafezeiro, of the entry “Il restouro architettonico”, by Renato Bonelli (1963), had been published in the 12th edition of Thésis magazine. During this Roman meeting, I proposed to Prof. Carbonara – who had been enthusiastic about translating the text by Bonelli, his master – also translated into Portuguese his text entitled “Il restouro non è conservazione...”, to which he enthusiastically agreed. This text corresponds to the Master Class given by him on May 16, 2008, in the Aula Magna of the Faculty of Architecture of the Sapienza Università di Roma, headquarters of via Gramsci, for the inauguration of the Academic Year 2008/2009. Unfortunately, on February 1, 2023, less than a year after this last meeting, Prof. Carbonara passed away, aged 80, as a result of Covid-19, leaving as a legacy a set of theoretical and critical reflections that contributed decisively to the field of architectural restoration in Italy and the world. The publication of this text, translated into Portuguese by me and Yan Cafezeiro, aims to contribute to the dissemination of his thoughts on the subject among architects and architecture students in Brazil and other Portuguese-speaking countries, continuing the initiatives of other researchers who have dedicated themselves to disseminating their work in Brazil, with emphasis on Profa. Beatriz Mugayar Kühl, from the University of São Paulo.