Restoration - Restorative Redevelopment of Devastated Ecocultural Landscapes - page 2

of the new South Africa in the contrast between restorative justice and retributive
justice—between the healing promised by a Truth and Reconciliation Commission,
and the remedy that might be procured by legally imposed punishment? In short,
there typically is considerable aesthetic, economic (see chapter 3), moral (see chapter
2), or political significance attached to the difference between repairing and restor-
ing, between restoring and preserving, and so on. One authority in charge of the
treatment of Michelangelo's David hoped to defuse criticism of the methods that he
endorsed by insisting that critics “made a mistake in talking about restoration. It's not
a restoration. It's pure and simple maintenance” (D'Emilio 2003).
Important as such differences among the family of repair activities are, however,
any reparative project is likely to involve many of the members of this family. For
example, in his widely used topic Historic Preservation: Curatorial Management
of the Built World , James Marston Fitch (1990) first goes to considerable length to
clarify some of the differences among the following: preservation (which “implies
the maintenance of the artifact in the same physical condition as when it was
received” by those in whose hands its care has been placed), restoration (“the pro-
cess of returning the artifact to the physical condition in which it would have been
at some previous stage”), and reconstruction (“the recreation of vanished buildings
on their original site”). Fitch then goes on to point out that what is called the “res-
toration” of Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, is in fact “a beguiling mixture of the
preserved, the restored, and the reconstructed” (and that hearty brew includes “eva-
sion”: when Fitch published his topic, Williamsburg had still managed to ignore the
role of slavery in the historical moment to which the restoration is supposed to take
us; Fitch 1990). Moreover, preserving, rehabilitating, or reconstructing a building
may simultaneously be part of a project to restore a community's historical identity,
its wounded pride, or its tattered hope (think, for example, of what is thought to be at
stake in what happens at New York City's Ground Zero).
So while it is crucial to keep in mind the differences among repairing and restor-
ing and preserving and reconstructing, it is also necessary to note that many of the
projects undertaken by H. reparans in fact involve a mix of these different activities.
But note, too, that there is no reason to think that people who have the knowledge,
skill, and judgment to execute a repair job of one kind thereby have the knowledge,
skill, and judgment needed to carry out a repair job of another kind. The point is
not just that being good at repairing a car does not insure being good at restoring it,
that an automobile mechanic who knows how to get your old Mustang running again
probably doesn't have the skills to return it to its 1966 glory. Even a good mechanic
who is also a good restorer isn't necessarily good at mediating conflict, and vice
versa. Otherwise, the people who repair your appliances would be interchangeable
with the damage control folks who work in customer service. Of course, some people
may be good at both, but that's not because being skilled in one area of repair auto-
matically translates into being skilled in another.
It's no wonder, then, that what appears to be even the simplest repair job can
succeed at one level and misfire at another. For example, James has broken one
of Sarah's favorite keepsakes, a flower vase given to her by her mother, now long
deceased. A skilled restorer, James hopes that carefully mending the vase will also
help repair Sarah's ever more fragile trust in James's sense of responsibility. The