Louis Cloquet e la liberazione degli edifici antichi, tra «restauro storico e positivismo»

In the context of «historical restoration and positivism» (Carbonara, 1997), the contribution focuses on the examination of the theories of Louis Cloquet - a Belgian scholar writing between 19th and 20th centuries - on the «liberation of ancient buildings». The topic has been the occasion of an intense debate at the beginning of the twentieth century, when the historical European city was affected by the transformations involved by industrial expansion and demographic growth. In the essay Le dégagement des anciens édifices (1903), dealing with the liberation of monuments from later additions - with explicit reference to Tournai Cathedral - Cloquet urges caution, setting the understanding of historical palimpsests and the need for conservation before functional and aesthetic requirements. The context of the debate is represented by that specific moment of the overcoming of memory values attribution moving from the single monument to the historical city, in the urgency of preserving at least the sectors characterized by the most perceivable identity.