Conservation Contact Zones. The evolution of theory for conservation practice at the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), 1965–1984

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Andreas Putz
• Subject Area: Architecture, Building and Construction History, Construction Research, Sustainable Building Technology
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 559167094

Today’s global theory and practice of building heritage conservation is a result of the foundational international discussions and meetings after the Second World War. In the face of the existing national constraints and concepts of architectural heritage, and within the geopolitical conflicts of the Cold War era and its East-West polarization, the significant increase in international understanding, tangible in the shared principles and foundations of heritage conservation, calls for an explanation. The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) was founded in 1965 as an international non-governmental organization for the preservation of historic monuments. ICOMOS provided international forums and facilitated a complex, networked structure of cultural heritage cooperation during the Cold War. Focusing on the international conferences of ICOMOS and associated architectural activity of building heritage conservation, the research project will utilize the concept of 'conservation contact zones' to critically examine how these settings of interaction were orchestrated and thus disentangle their complex structures and networks of agencies. The research project will especially investigate the first seven main operational meeting and scientific conferences of ICOMOS - the General Assemblies - in Cracow in 1965, in Oxford in 1969, in Budapest in 1972, in Rothenburg o.d. Tauber in 1975, in Moscow in 1978, in Rome in 1981 and in Rostock and Dresden in 1984. Politically and diplomatically coordinated in the background, these conferences were meticulously prepared, were covered by national and international media, included public exhibitions and site visits, produced various pioneering publications and accounts, and involved professional experts from architecture and art history as well as the general public. The continued and organized meeting of conservation experts in these 'contact zones' intertwined the developments of heritage conservation in the East and the West. The research project will map and analyze said conferences and restoration projects as places of encounters and discussion and thus reconstruct the settings of the international evolution of building heritage theory and practice. Based on comprehensive archival and literature research, it will outline how national restoration practices, theoretical discussions, and political circumstances influenced the development of international building heritage conservation theory in three main areas: an expanded notion of the monument, acceptance of modernization of the historic built fabric, and the involvement and participation of society in building heritage conservation.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants