Stavropoleos Monastery through time. On preserving and losing authenticity*
Stavropoleos Monastery through time. On preserving and losing authenticity*

Summary/Abstract: After the period of transition from the empiricism of the 19th century to the foundation of the first constitutional forms of protection of our historical monuments, in 1890, Stavropoleos Monastery stood under the attention of the authorities and on the cusp of an ample salvage intervention. We can say that the restoration of the foundation of Metropolitan Ioanichie represented the transition from the methodology established by Lecomte du Noüy to the rigours of “historical restoration”, according to the stages proposed by Prof Grigore Ionescu. The conservation-restoration dichotomy, unequivocally expressed by architect H. Révoil in defence of his French colleague, transformed the creativity of the restorer into a perfectly legitimate action, in which addition and remaking were accepted. Suspended, the criterion of authenticity only functioned in the measure in which the creation of the restorer was impregnated by the spirit of the original work. On such permissive grounds, the genius of architect Ion Mincu saved the monastic ensemble from flagrant disaccords, building, in an elegant eclecticism and in the language of an original synthesis of the autochthonous architectural shapes, a new precinct, and rebuilding the church steeple. At the same time, Mincu distanced himself from the methodology of demolition and reconstruction intensely used by Lecomte du Noüy in the first-rank Romanian monuments. Entering the area of “historical restoration”, the restorer of Stavropoleos Monastery preserved, as far as what he considered possible, the authentic substance, from 1724 and 1730, of the church. Th e rebuilding of the steeple and the drastic remaking of the exterior painting and of the work of plasterer Iordan was a visible connection to the new monastic precinct, with its portico and buildings.

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