The Conservation of the Architectural Heritage in Spain in the Interwar Period

Abstract

Between 1919 and 1939, the conservation of architectural heritage in Spain underwent a radical transformation, in which it went from maintaining theoretical principles and a practice based on romantic historicism, to developing the innovative concepts of scientific restoration, coinciding with the international trends that inspired the Charter of Athens. In these twenty years, an alternative to historicist restorations was formulated, an innovative method of action was developed, a technical inspection and intervention body was created, and a remarkable action of conservation and restoration of the architectural heritage was carried out. This important development, however, was interrupted by the civil war, which between 1936 and 1939 devastated the country and which at its end gave way to a state action that used criteria closer to the historicism of the beginning of the century than to scientific restoration.