Liliana Grassi e il rapporto antico e nuovo nell’intervento di conservazione

The considerable destruction inflicted on cultural heritage during the last world war, as is well known, greatly ac-celerated the process of awareness for the fate of the legacy of the past. Among the most significant methodologi-cal contributions that emerged in those years, from the lively debate, then in progress, is that provided, in 1964, by the Venice International Charter for the Conservation, Restoration of Monuments and Sites, whose interest and approval, with which it was received, still endures sixty years later. Within the articulated and lively theoretical reflection that arose in the aftermath of the document's drafting, Liliana Grassi's unprecedented experiences in the search for continuity with the past in historical contexts express the sign of a renewal and disciplinary advance-ment of Italian culture on the side of Conservation and Restoration. The contribution presented here, starting from a reconnaissance of some of the Milanese scholar's theoretical and methodological contributions on the theme of the relationship between old and new within restoration, seeks to restore attention to an intellectual figure endowed with a knowledge as broad as her critical conscience, who proved capable of relating different disciplinary spheres and heterogeneous instances to each other, translating them into that synthesis that has been the very essence, since its origin, of architecture.