Conservation-Restoration paradigm shift after disaster: the Graphic Documents case study

Abstract

With this paper we draw attention to the role of the disaster, leading to profound changes, to the paradigm shift in the intervention of conservation and restoration of graphic documents, based on the study of case studies from the two main disaster types affecting paper works: the flood and fire. As examples we present the flooding of Florence in 1966, which reached the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze and precipitated a shift, breaking with the mimetic restoration, and the fire of the National Personal Records Center, in 1973, which allowed a new demand to non-invasive methods for information retrieval, through the development of preventive methods and the application of digital restoration techniques in the 21st century. In parallel, are placed two cases in Portugal: the great flood, in 1967, in the region of Lisbon, which affected the Calouste Gulbenkian collections, and the fire of the Escola Politécnica, in 1978, which destroyed part of the Arquivo Histórico do Museu Bocage.

Keywords

• Floods
• Fires
• Graphic documents
• Mimetic restoration
• Conservation
• Digital restoration