Retroization

There is a steadily growing interest in the conservation, restoration, and modern use of the old city buildings. Today, funds comparable to the costs of new construction are spent on updating old city blocks. A whole family of new concepts has appeared that designate this kind of activity - in addition to the generally accepted ones - reconstruction and restoration , - also retroization, rehabilitation , renovation , regeneration , and revaluation. Despite the various shades, their meaning is similar - renewal, a return to the past, and therefore its reevaluation, rethinking.

In addition to restoration, retroization refers to the construction of new facilities that reflect the characteristics of the past. This is basically the recent past, where retro seeks to repeat, focusing on products, fashions and art styles.

If you go back to history, many artists and architects, starting from the Renaissance and up to the XIX century. most of all they were inspired precisely by the spirit of antiquity, and not by what was left of it. They were less concerned about preserving the past, rather than drawing inspiration from it for their own activities.

Ignorance of the history of the past, misunderstanding of the greatest creation of mankind leads to the pulling of historical motives from the context. Retroization is becoming a miserable parody of the past. Here, style and decor dating back to earlier times replace what is regarded as later. For example, an English building with terraces of the 19th and early 20th centuries. overgrown with imitations of façade details of the 17th and 18th centuries, and in American cities, Victorian-style main streets “age” in order to give them a colonial look.
Ignorance leads to the fact that retroization becomes a vision of the past in terms of wealth, when the preferred past is seen primarily from the perspective of the rich, noble and powerful. Also, in the absence of an understanding of old forms, and the desire to reduce the cost of repairs and maintenance, retroization can cause the destruction of objects and the disappearance of heritage.
In the book “The Past is a Foreign Country,” David Lowenthal notes that no retroized object can be considered as convincing evidence of a harmonious synthesis of premonitions of the predecessors of pre-modernism with an established tradition, which would be aimed at capturing the spirit of tradition, rather than reproducing its details [ 1] . It should be remembered that the construction of new facilities using the example of old ones is by no means a legacy [2] .

1. Retroizacja. Co to jest i dokąd prowadzi? Bohdan Szermer. Wiadomości Konserwatorskie 2004
2. Race Chepaytene. Cultural heritage in a global world. - Vilnius: YSU, 2010.
3. David Lowenthal The past is a foreign country. SPb .: 2004