ABSTRACT

In the field of cultural heritage – especially built heritage – official doctrines are an accepted way to guide practice by defining what is and what is not acceptable in the recognition, treatment, and protection of tangible and intangible heritage. Typically, a doctrine results from an international meeting of heritage experts and therefore represents a consensus about some aspect of heritage conservation practice. Once published, they are called “charters.” A particularly well-known doctrine in historic preservation practice, for instance, is called the “Venice Charter” and was the result of a meeting of heritage experts in Venice in 1964. 1 Published by what would become the International Council on Monuments and Sites (I.C.O.M.O.S.), this one document has had a seminal influence on practice and on other, later doctrines as well as rules and regulations, such as the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation, which forms one of the foundational pillars of historic preservation practice in the United States. This chapter introduces the reader to some of these built heritage conservation charters and relates them to the practice of automobile restoration, especially by comparing these charters to the only example of an automobile conservation charter: the Turin Charter. 2