Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-5r2nc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-12T08:04:25.006Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Perceiving the Past: From Age Value to Pastness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 December 2017

Cornelius Holtorf
Cornelius Holtorf*
Affiliation:
School of Cultural Sciences, Linnaeus University, Kalmar, Sweden. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

According to the Austrian art historian Alois Riegl (1857–1905), cultural heritage possesses age value (Alterswert) based on the perception of an object’s visible traces of age. His 1903 essay “The Modern Cult of Monuments” became a classic, and age value has ever since been constitutive for cultural heritage. Closer scrutiny, however, reveals that clever copies, reconstructions, and imaginative inventions can possess age value too. I therefore suggest “pastness” as a useful term for denoting the perception that a given object is “of the past.” Pastness is not immanent in an object but, rather, results from its appearance (for example, patina), its context (for example, in a museum), or its correspondence with preconceived expectations among the audience. In this article, I review the concept of pastness and discuss its implications for the global heritage sector. Age value emerges as being less universal than Riegl thought and was linked to a very particular intellectual and cultural context.

Keywords

Alois Rieglage valueheritage valuesDresdenPlanet of the Apes
Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Cultural Property , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , November 2017 , pp. 497 - 515
Copyright
Copyright © International Cultural Property Society 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Altrock, Uwe, Bertram, Grischa, Horni, Henriette, and Asendorf, Olaf. 2010. Positionen zum Wiederaufbau verlorener Bauten und Räume. Forschungen, vol. 143, Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Bau und Stadtentwicklung. Bonn: Bundesamt für Bauwesen und Raumforschung.Google Scholar
Araoz, Gustavo. 2013. “Conservation Philosophy and Its Development: Changing Understandings of Authenticity and Significance.” Heritage and Society 6, no. 2: 144–54.Google Scholar
Bal, Mieke. 1999. Quoting Caravaggio: Contemporary Art, Preposterous History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Bruner, Edward. 1994. “Abraham Lincoln as Authentic Reproduction: A Critique of Postmodernism.” American Anthropologist 96: 397–415.Google Scholar
Burström, Mats. 2009. “Garbage or Heritage: The Existential Dimension of a Car Cemetery.” In Contemporary Archaeologies. Excavating Now, edited by Holtorf, Cornelius and Piccini, Angela, 131–43. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Cecil, Clementine. 2011. “‘We shall soon have the newest ancient heritage in the world’: The Rise of the Sham Replica under Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and Its Implications for Russia’s Architectural Heritage.” Historic Environment 2, no. 1: 68–102.Google Scholar
Crang, Mike. 1996. “Magic Kingdom or a Quixotic Quest for Authenticity?” Annals of Tourism Research 23, no. 2: 415–31.Google Scholar
Dawdy, Shannon Lee. 2016. Patina: A Profane Archaeology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Eisen, Markus. 2010. “Carcassonne, Frankreich.” In Geschichte der Rekonstruktion: Konstruktion der Geschichte, edited by Nerdinger, Winfried, 262–65. Munich: Prestel.Google Scholar
Fallon, Brian. 1993. “William Crozier.” Irish Arts Review Yearbook 9: 183–86.Google Scholar
Fojut, Noel. 2009. “The Philosophical, Political and Pragmatic Roots of the Convention.” In Heritage and Beyond, edited by Council of Europe, 13–21. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. http://www.coe.int/en/web/culture-and-heritage/faro-research (accessed 6 January 2017).Google Scholar
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1975. Truth and Method. London: Sheed and Ward.Google Scholar
Hall, Martin. 2006. “The Reappearance of the Authentic.” In Museum Frictions: Public Cultures/Global Transformations, edited by Karp, Ivan, Kratz, Corinne A., Szwaja, Lynn, and Ybarra-Frausto, Tomás, 70–101. Durham: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henke-Bockschatz, Gerhard. 2009. “Denkmalschutz und Kulissenarchitektur.” In Geschichtskultur: Die Anwesenheit von Vergangenheit in der Gegenwart, edited by Oswalt, Vadim and Pandel, Hans-Jürgen, 174–83. Schwalbach: Wochenschau.Google Scholar
Holtorf, Cornelius. 2005. From Stonehenge to Las Vegas: Archaeology as Popular Culture. Lanham: Altamira Press.Google Scholar
Holtorf, Cornelius. 2007. “What Does Not Move Any Hearts: Why Should It Be Saved? The Denkmalpflegediskussion in Germany.” International Journal of Cultural Property 14, no. 1: 33–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holtorf, Cornelius. 2010. “The Presence of Pastness: Themed Environments and Beyond.” In Staging the Past: Themed Environments in Transcultural Perspective, edited by Schlehe, Judith et al., 23–40. Bielefeld: Transcript.Google Scholar
Holtorf, Cornelius. 2013a. “On Pastness: A Reconsideration of Materiality in Archaeological Object Authenticity.” Anthropological Quarterly 86, no. 2: 427–44.Google Scholar
Holtorf, Cornelius. 2013b. “The Past People Want: Heritage for the Majority?” In Appropriating the Past: Philosophical Perspectives on the Practice of Archaeology, edited by Scarre, Geoffrey and Coningham, Robin, 63–81. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Holtorf, Cornelius, and Fairclough, Graham. 2013. “The New Heritage and Re-Shapings of the Past.” In Reclaiming Archaeology: Beyond the Tropes of Modernity, edited by Gonz Lez-Ruibal, Alfredo, 197–210. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
James, Jason. 2004. “Recovering the German Nation: Heritage Restoration and the Search for Unity.” In Marketing Heritage: Archaeology and the Consumption of the Past, edited by Rowan, Yorke and Baram, Uzi, 143–65. Lanham: Altamira Press.Google Scholar
Kerkhoff, Ulrich. 2008. “Das Prinzip Rekonstruktion: Skizzen einer Zürcher Tagung.” Die Denkmalpflege 1: 47–53.Google Scholar
Lamprakos, Michele. 2014. “Riegl’s ‘Modern Cult of Monuments’ and the Problem of Value.” Change Over Time 4, no. 2: 418–35.Google Scholar
Loulanski, Tolina. 2006. “Revising the Concept for Cultural Heritage: The Argument for a Functional Approach.” International Journal of Cultural Property 13: 207–33.Google Scholar
Lowenthal, David. 1985. The Past Is a Foreign Country. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lowenthal, David. 2015. The Past Is a Foreign Country: Revisited. 2nd rev. ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Macdonald, Sharon. 2013. Memorylands: Heritage and Identity in Europe Today. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Magirius, Heinrich. 2010. “Rekonstruktion in der Denkmalpflege.” In Geschichte der Rekonstruktion: Konstruktion der Geschichte, edited by Nerdinger, Winfried, 148–55. Munich: Prestel.Google Scholar
Muñoz Viñas, Salvador. 2004. Contemporary Theory of Conservation. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.Google Scholar
Riegl, Alois. 1982. “The Modern Cult of Monuments: Its Character and Its Origin (1903).” Oppositions 25: 21–51.Google Scholar
Rohde, Joe. “From Myth to Mountain: Insights into Virtual Placemaking.” ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics 41, no. 3: Article no. 1.Google Scholar
Samuel, Raphael. 1994. Theatres of Memory: Past and Present in Contemporary Culture. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Scheurmann, Ingrid. 2006. “Das Denkmal als Marke: Vom Konservieren und Restaurieren in der Nachfolge Georg Dehios.” In Echt – alt – schön – wahr: Zeitschichten der Denkmalpflege, edited by Scheurmann, Ingrid and Meier, Hans R., 95–106. Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag.Google Scholar
Tuan, Yi-Fu, with Hoelscher, Steven D., 1997. “Disneyland: Its Place in World Culture.” In Designing Disney’s Theme Parks: The Architecture of Reassurance, edited by Marling, Karal, 191–98. Paris: Flammarion.Google Scholar
Woodward, Christopher. 2001. In Ruins. London: Random House.Google Scholar
Wright, Alex. 2007. The Imagineering Field Guide to Disney’s Animal Kingdom: An Imagineer’s Eye Tour. New York: Disney Editions.Google Scholar