Abstract

The architect Fernando Chueca Goitia is a key figure in the practice of architectural restoration in Spain. His work exemplifies the state of the discipline between 1953 and 1975, a crucial span of time when many key monuments throughout the country were transformed. This article analyzes the main restoration projects Chueca carried out in his role as a conservation architect on monuments in Spain's Aragon, Basque, and Rioja regions. His story is emblematic of the difficulties faced by Spanish architectural restorers in these years; they faced monuments damaged either by war or lack of maintenance and were forced to choose between restoring decayed fabric from previous restorations (itself now of historical value) or creating a lost architectural unity in works many times previously restored. Chueca's work fell in the latter camp—then distinctly unfashionable—as he put his vast knowledge of history and restoration to use to retrieve the unity and architectural quality of the building in question, even if this led him to remove elements that would, in contemporary preservation aesthetics, now be considered as clearly historic.

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