Abstract

At what point is reconstruction a necessary option? This paper compares the motives that determine the reparation process on the Frauenkirche in Dresden, Germany, an eighteenth-century Baroque church with the Gur-i Amir in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, a fifteenth-century royal mausoleum. The latter is situated on one of the ancient Silk Road trade routes and was the capital city of warlord, Timur Lane (Tamerlane). Guidelines are used to determine the efficacy of the reconstruction and corollate with those that are adjudicated by ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites) and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). These guidelines include the support of authenticity to the original site, exposure to master workmanship, interest in restoring community heritage, and lastly, integrity to the building. These two groups ICOMOS and UNESCO have established guidelines that focus on authenticity as a determining value in conservation and refabrication schemes, its use in judgements enhances the importance of information on the cultural heritage under investigation. Consideration is also given to notions of national heritage, of which authenticity is a part, and its preservation of values in light of globalization. This paper analyses the historical backgrounds, rebuilding processes and visual analyses that support their importance and value while reflecting opposing motivations and outcomes. Consequently, these two World Heritage sites are contrasted in their twentieth- and twenty-first century socio-political contexts to distinguish a well-considered homage to restoration as exemplified by the Frauenkirche, compared to the Gur-i Amir mausoleum that had the opposing outcome of a composite intervention.

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