Metamorphoses

Abstract

The Esterházy Palace in Fertőd is part of Hungary’s largest eighteenth-century residential complex. After severe damage at the end of the Second World War and in the 1950s, the palace was repeatedly renovated for almost seventy years. Between 2021 and 2022, the state apartments in the main building and some adjoining rooms underwent extensive conservation and restoration. Due to the palace’s complicated history and the inconsistent interventions of the post-war period, it was difficult to preserve as many remnants as possible. The aim was to preserve and display all historical periods from the beginning to the present, as they provide information about all the historical and cultural changes over the centuries. From this point of view, the contradictory relationship between some previous interventions and the principles laid down in documents such as the Venice Charter, the Nara Document or the UNESCO Convention of the Intangible Heritage were considered a legacy that can no longer be erased from the history of the palace. Based on conservation and restoration principles crystallised in the second half of the twentieth century and considering the changes in the field of heritage conservation since the 1990s, an attempt was made to preserve the tangible and intangible heritage as far as possible. With this in mind, the rooms were divided into three groups, each of which is subject to a different conservation and restoration method.