The ways in which two masterpieces of modern architecture, the Villa Savoye at Poissy and the German Pavilion at the International Exhibition of Barcelona, both designed in the very late 1920’s, were restored, in a broad sense and respectively through rehabilitation and reconstruction, after the turn of 1966 are problematic. From the 1930s onwards, the plans and images of these two works played an essential role in disseminating the canon of modern architecture. Later, Burri's photographs or Tschumi’s advertisements served as documents that demonstrate the high degree of ruin that the villa finished by Le Corbusier in 1931 had reached, given the refusal of its owners to renovate the building after the damage suffered during the Second World War. Even in its significant material degradation, the villa continued to reflect its essential formal components, but in its deterioration illustrated metaphorically the crisis that the orthodoxy of the modern movement was undergoing. In contrast, the pavilion designed by Mies Van der Rohe, which was conceived as a temporary construction, endured as a vanished reference that was never altered in its pure image and whose material reproduction had been demanded since the 1950s by Barcelona's leading architects. When these two repristination operations were completed in the 1980s, the strategies that were employed, in both cases generally in line with the restauro scientifico, were widely accepted by critics. However, some others underlined several contradictions in this respect. For example, one of them, concerning the German Pavilion, is of an ontological nature, questioning the pertinence of reconstructing a transitory building by raising its material qualities, using later construction techniques and completing, after interpretative work, its external definition. This paper analyses the approaches to restauro critico applied in these two interventions, highlighting the nonstraightforward architecture nature of the results achieved through them.

Cinemas represent a unique and inimitable heritage that is often left abandoned or subjected to continuous, incompatible changes in use, mostly driven by economic and speculative needs that risk erasing these architectural testimonies. This is a situation in which architectural heritage is suffering from relentless disputes; these are spaces that are being sold off, demolished and, in the best-case scenario, altered, as they are now considered to be mere consumer products linked to the needs of a market in constant evolution and experimentation. These issues fall squarely within the discipline of Modern Restoration: first and foremost, the issue of ‘compatibility’ of use between new destinations and the specific functions of the building, which often cannot ‘tolerate’ the functional, plant and structural modifications required for new activities. This contribution aims to provide an opportunity to open a discussion on a highly topical issue today, at the center of a broad debate involving history, criticism, cultural theory, and restoration.

The contemporary architectures protection is based on the belief that protecting the works closest to us can create a collective awareness about protection for the heritage of the late 20th century, which is threatened by interventions not respects its distinctive characteristics. This paper highlights the bureau work about protection some examples of regional contemporary architecture.

The experiments and discoveries of early 20th-century architecture yielded particularly significant results even in Italy's provincial contexts. The social and economic growth recorded in Alba led the fascist regime in the 1930s to build several youth-oriented buildings, including a boarding school and a gymnasium. Despite having very different architectural backgrounds, these two buildings represent the most important examples of the Modern movement in the city. They also stand as a testament to two important public works designed for education. After almost a century, the city's socioeconomic dynamics and the need for new functionalities in these two buildings required new projects. In light of the design choices made and based on the methodological guidelines of the scientific restoration community, this work aims to critically evaluate the two restoration projects, highlighting the decisions that were undertaken.

Developed by the BBPR studio and sponsored by ANED, the Italian Memorial at Auschwitz, which opened in 1980, was intended as a choral and immersive work, featuring a suspended spiral covered in canvases painted by Pupino Samonà, paired with Primo Levi’s narration and Luigi Nono’s music. Since 2008, two projects have been launched to preserve the Memorial: the Glossa Project for minimal restoration, and the subsequent Glossa XX1 project (2010-15) for a more comprehensive intervention. These projects raised questions about what it means to restore the untimely: a monument designed to be inconvenient risked being domesticated. Deemed unsuitable for the didactic aims of the Auschwitz Museum, the exhibition was closed in 2011 and eventually relocated to Florence. The Memorial’s ability to challenge memory as a source of conflict remains a landmark case in the debate over the restoration of modern works. Following its removal, many memorials in Eastern Europe were demolished.

The heritage of twentieth-century architecture has long struggled to define its boundaries and its terminology. The coexistence of expressions such as “Restoration of the Modern,” “of the Contemporary,” or “of the Twentieth Century” reveals a profound uncertainty that extends from language to disciplinary practice. Words, far from being neutral, become instruments of legitimization and shape the values attributed to architectural heritage. In the case of modern and contemporary architecture, the overlapping of categories such as modernity, memory, and identity has generated conceptual and methodological ambiguities, particularly when the recent past enters the domain of preservation. The progressive transformation of modern works from testimonies of an era into monuments of collective culture exposes tensions between historical interpretation and aesthetic reconstruction. This essay examines how linguistic shifts, theoretical debates, and heritage policies have contributed to redefining the status of twentieth-century architecture, questioning the criteria of its recognition, the role of authorship, and the meaning of restoration itself. Ultimately, the restoration of the twentieth century emerges as a field suspended between critical interpretation and the construction of new narratives of legitimacy.

Built in the early 1930s following the architectural rationalist principles, Manifattura Tabacchi was an important production site in Florence, until its decommissioning in 2001. The Recovery Plan in 2019 marked the beginning of a virtuous process of urban regeneration, one that draws inspiration from the uniqueness of the monumental complex, not by turning it into a museum, but by reweaving it into the urban and social fabric in which it is embedded. The transition from the urban scale of the masterplan to the detailed scale of the restoration project for the individual buildings took place through a design process conducted in dialogue with the Soprintendenza, with the aim of reconciling innovation with preservation. Attention to detail, care in the reuse of materials, have made it possible to transform through preservation, opening the renewing spaces to new functions, and returning them to the community without irreparably losing their original character.

Designed by Ettore Rossi between 1938 and 1939, the ‘Ristorante Ufficiale’ was one of the few buildings planned for the E42 to be completed before works stopped in 1943. Set on the monumental axis leading to the ‘Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana’, it featured a marble portico and a vestibule with water basin and a mosaic by Angelo Canevari. After the war, the building was repaired and reopened for the 1953 Agricultural Exhibition, but in 1961 it was radically transformed when the Cassa del Mezzogiorno converted it into offices: interiors were reconfigured, an extra floor added, and the portico and vestibule concealed by a curtain wall. Declared of cultural interest in 2004, the building raises crucial questions about heritagization: should the 1960s modifications – though diverging from Rossi’s design – be preserved as part of EUR’s post-war heritage, or should the original scheme be reinstated? With renovation works imminent, it is up to the owner, the new tenant and the Superintendence to address this and other questions.

The year 1958 marked the beginning of the history of the new Town Hall of Cesenatico, to be realised on the site of the previous building, which had been severely damaged during the Second World War. It is the time period when the Pirelli Skyscraper was built in Milan and the year immediately following the inauguration of the Garzanti Foundation in Forlì, which would pave the way for Gio Ponti’s experience in Romagna. Although Saul Bravetti, a local 20th century architect, was initially called, the parallel involvement of Gio Ponti led to the final decision to take the opportunity to entrust the design of the new municipal building in Cesenatico to a renowned firm. Built in the early 1960s by the Brandolini company of Cesena, the new Town Hall of Cesenatico underwent a series of modifications during the design phase, the construction moment and its life, making it an emblematic case of modern metamorphoses.

The emergency maintenance of the Galassia residential hotel in Turin—designed by architects Sergio Jaretti and Elio Luzi and carried out in 2012–2013 by architect Guido Aragona and engineer Anna De Agostini—offers an opportunity for critical reflection on approaches to the architectural heritage of the later twentieth century: a heritage not formally protected, yet identifiable for its architectural and experimental value. The building—an expression of avant-garde typological and formal research primarily oriented toward the livability of both private and shared domestic spaces—exhibited widespread structural and material pathologies, particularly in the roofing systems and the external infill masonry. The paper briefly outlines the project’s salient aspects, showing how even for ‘new’ architectures it is desirable to adopt a conservation-oriented approach whose operative principles are drawn from the restoration of historic structures.