The story of the Tower of Babel is one of the most famous in the Bible: God created the confusion of languages so that people had to stop their all too ambitious tower construction because of communication difficulties.
(Lucas van Valckenborchower, 1594, Louvre, Photo: Public domain)
As the Hornemann Institute has been working internationally since its foundation in 1998, we have had to struggle from the very beginning with the fact that the terminology of conservation is not standardised: communication is sometimes really difficult, not only in Europe but sometimes even within a single country.
In some cases, the terms mean the same thing, even partially, in different areas and languages. The inconsistent meaning of a term can already be found, for example, in the word "restoration" itself: In English, the term "restoration" still has a negative connotation, since in the 19th century it was largely associated with reconstructions. In Italy and Germany this was also the case, but the terms "restauro" and " Restaurierung" - as well as the French "restauration" and the Polish "restauracjya" - received a positive reinterpretation in the course of the twentieth century.
We are currently involved in two projects:
