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Abstract:The disappearance of an historic building in the consolidated built environment of an historic center leaves a wound calling for reflection. The delicate operation needed to stitch up this lacuna could be likened to that of art restoration or even be classified as an "urban restoration." This essay analyzes the act of reintegration in different branches of the arts including painting, literature, and music and draws conclusions on the need for detailed study of the context of the work to be completed. New design, in this instance, should be carried out in a contemporary manner but in dialogue with its context regardless of the physical and functional autonomy of the building. This essay describes three possible design strategies for architectural reintegration: conceptual, typological, and formal reprocessing. Compositional parameters such as color, geometry, form, volume, texture, materiality, lighting, etc. become tools in an act of allographic completion in which contemporary design professionals intervene within the context of anonymous traditional master builders. Finally, these reflections are illustrated with two case studies, both of which are located in the district of Valencia: the Maldonado building, with a plot, appearance, and setting of palatial buildings, and the nearby Recaredo building, with a floor plan, configuration, and context more suited to that of workers' dwellings.

Abstract:This article examines the Venice Charter’s influence on the evolution of restoration in Spain in the interesting period that bridges the gap between Francoism and the dawn of democracy. Under the organizational structure that prevailed during Francoism, the restoration of monuments in the whole state was assigned to seven specialized architects who engaged in a stylistic approach. With the subsequent dawn of democracy, the field of monument restoration opened to a large range of non-specialized architects who applied ideas of critical restoration theory. This blatant dichotomy led to a diverse interpretation of the Venice Charter that this text strives to analyze from the vantage point of its actors, starting with the work of the participants in the Second International Congress of Architects and Technicians of Historic Monuments and continuing with the protagonists of the discipline of restoration in this country who followed after them.

Abstract:Apart from some cases related to the glories of nineteenth-century structural engineering and some isolated examples representing the avant-garde of the moment, world’s fair architecture of the eclectic period continues to be quite an unexplored subject within the panorama of recent architecture. This article analyzes the function of nineteenth-century world’s fair architecture by considering the interpretation and display of past traditions in local and international exhibitions, the different strategies implemented in their conception, and current approaches to interpretation. Finally, a reflection is made about the role of world’s fair architecture in the creation of the architecture and urban planning of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century cities. This paper is an elaboration of some ideas presented in the book: Fernando Vegas López-Manzanares, La Arquitectura de la Exposición Regional Valenciana de 1909 y de la Exposición Nacional de 1910(Valencia: Ediciones Generales de la Construcción, 2003).