Reconstruction (architecture)

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Reconstruction is an architectural term meaning returning a damaged building to a known earlier state by the introduction of new materials, as defined in the Burra Charter.^[1] The most extreme form of reconstruction is creating a replica of a completely destroyed building.

The erection of replica buildings is usually the result of destruction of landmark monuments that is experienced as traumatic by many inhabitants of the region - sometimes planning errors and politically motivated destruction are to be corrected this way.

Examples: Yongdingmen (former Peking city gate temporarily sacrificed to traffic considerations) ,St Mark's Campanile (collapsed in 1902), House of the Blackheads (Riga), Iberian Gate and Chapel in Moscow, Cathedral of Christ the Saviour (Moscow) (were victims of Stalinism) , Dresden Frauenkirche and Semperoper in Dresden (bombed at the end of World War II). All these landmark buildings are in fact new but also replicas of older buildings that have been destroyed by historical and natural catastrophes.

A specifically well known example is the rebuilding of the historic city center of Warsaw after 1945. Warsaw Old Town and Royal Castle, Warsaw had been badly damaged already at the outset of World War II. It was systematically razed to the ground by German troops after the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. The reconstruction of Warsaw's historic center (e.g.St. John's Cathedral, Warsaw, St. Kazimierz Church, Ujazdów Castle) as well as e.g. the replica of the Stari Most recently built in Mostar have met with official approval by UNESCO.

Critics of reconstructed and replica buildings see them as a falsification of history and as the creation of a kind of "architectural ersatz". Most guidelines for reconstruction (such as the Burra and Venice charters) suggest that new construction be distinguishable from the original.