Restauro e cemento armato. l’avvio della sperimentazione in Francia e in Italia fra ortodossia ed eterodossia

Between the 19th and 20th centuries, when Historicism exhausts its heroic impulse, the advent of new materials raises a process of de-institutionalization of languages and artistic practices. In a parallel path, architects restorers like de Baudot or Deneux, actively participate in testing the use of reinforced concrete in restoration. In France, the great nineteenth-century restorations had established “orthodoxy” in structural intervention, according to a constructive rationality of which monuments should be a complete expression. To meet that need, the constructive elements judged ineffective could be replaced with better and more resistant materials and solutions. It is through the ambiguities of the notion of constructive sincerity that the RC spreads as a surprisingly effective technique, especially after the destructions of the Great War. In Italy, the introduction of RC follows other routes. At the end of the 19th century, the stylistic approach evolving towards more theoretically conservative positions relegates structural sincerity to a secondary role compared to the documentary and artistic value. The use of hidden structures experienced after traumatic earthquakes is not considered unorthodox since the external appearance is preserved. Confidence in new techniques that enable authentic features to survive through hidden structural supports is confirmed by the Athens Conference of 1931. The international consensus on RC emerges from the various cultural milieux each defining its own boundaries of an orthodox practice. The route that we propose rereads some interventions to bring out the conflicts and contradictions of the redefinition of orthodoxy of structural replacements during the "modernization" phase of the techniques serving conservation.