From Nationalism to Cosmopolitan Classicism: Harry Fett's Concept of Cultural Capital

The Role of Traditional Workmanship in Urban Conservation of Røros, Norway

“…Fett viewed the history of the nation as dependent on exchange: "travel and trade, towns and villages, arts and crafts, production and cultivation of the country's resources. <…> Contrary to his nationalist predecessors, H. Fett provocatively praised the absolute monarchy that reigned in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for its political and military art, its classical ideals, its literature and not least, its architecture" [9,[23][24]. While H. Fett's predecessors viewed the classical structures as "un-national" and "untrue" in contrast to the authentic, natural and free Norwegian culture, the opposite approach of Fett enabled to recognize the Røros town as worth preserving because it testified the periods of the 17th and 18th century and the foreign initiatives in copper works and trade.…”