Gustavo Giovannoni e Paul Léon. Idee e “dottrine” a confronto nel processo di internazionalizzazione della cultura della tutela e del restauro

Gustavo Giovannoni and Paul Léon were two of the main actors during the early stages of the “codification” of a “preservation and restoration international culture”. They represented the Italian and French approaches to restoration during the cultural season, which led to the adoption of the first international document at the 1931 Athens Conference. They did not approve the formal approaches that were renewing the architectural language, but they were interested in technological innovations. They only considered that such new technical solutions needed to be concealed. The paper provides a critical review of the “official” reports presented by Léon and Giovannoni at the Athens Conference, highlighting similarities and divergences in their positions. It also wants to consider their discourses in relation to the actual practice of restoration, in order to understand what they shared and the different approaches that still mark the two national traditions. Ironically, indeed, the two cultures of restoration started to diverge during this phase of intense institutional and intellectual exchange.