The Profession

What is conservation-restoration?

The con­ser­va­tion-res­tor­a­tion pro­fes­sion has been form­al­ized since the 1950s.

A key com­pon­ent of con­ser­va­tion-res­tor­a­tion is the de­vel­op­ment of an in­di­vidu­al­ized concept for each cul­tur­al her­it­age as­set. This in­volves not only care­ful plan­ning and ex­e­cu­tion of in­ter­ven­tion­s, but also an un­der­stand­ing of the dam­age pro­cesses and ma­ter­i­als used, along with me­tic­u­lous doc­u­ment­a­tion. The work­ing pro­cess is guided by the re­quire­ments of the ori­gin­al ma­ter­i­als, the as­set's au­then­ti­city, and its past and fu­ture con­tex­t.

Qualification to the profession

Qual­i­fic­a­tion for the con­ser­va­tion-res­tor­a­tion pro­fes­sion is achieved through five-year spe­cial­ized uni­ver­sity pro­gram­s that com­bine sci­entif­ic ap­proaches with prac­tic­al skill­s. Form­al­ized pro­fes­sion­al train­ing began in Switzer­land in the 1960s, with the dip­loma track in­tro­duced in the 1980s.

Since 2005, the BA/MA tracks at the Swis­s-CRC (Swiss Con­ser­va­tion-Res­tor­a­tion Cam­pus) have provided ac­cess to the pro­fes­sion. Today’s pro­grams de­vel­op pro­fes­sion­als fo­cused on spe­cif­ic ma­ter­i­al­it­ies, ob­ject cat­egor­ies, and con­texts.

Collaboration is key

The pro­fes­sion is one build­ing block in the set of com­pet­en­cies re­quired to pre­serve cul­tur­al her­it­age. We col­lab­or­ate with spe­cial­ized col­leagues in craft­s, ar­chi­tec­ture, and en­gin­eer­ing, as well as in mu­seum­s, cul­tur­al her­it­age pre­ser­va­tion in­sti­tu­tion­s, and re­search en­vir­on­ment­s.

Aside from some in­sti­tu­tion­al po­s­i­tion­s, the con­ser­vat­or-restor­er pro­fes­sion is usu­ally char­ac­ter­ized by small or in­di­vidu­ally-­based com­pan­ies. It is com­mon to work in pro­ject-spe­cif­ic groups, which can com­prise con­ser­vat­ors from the same or dif­fer­ent spe­cial­iz­a­tion­s.

An organized profession

The con­ser­vat­or-restor­er pro­fes­sion in Switzer­land is or­gan­ized through the SKR (Swiss As­so­ci­ation for Con­ser­va­tion-Res­tor­a­tion). Nearly 500 qual­i­fied and qual­i­fy­ing pro­fes­sion­als are mem­bers and act­ive with­in the SKR, which was foun­ded in 1977.

At the European level, na­tion­al as­so­ci­ations like the SKR are or­gan­ized with­in E.C.C.O. (European Con­fed­er­a­tion of Con­ser­vat­or-Restor­er­s' Or­gan­isa­tion­s). In­ter­na­tion­ally, the pro­fes­sion is in­form­ally or­gan­ized through the IIC (In­ter­na­tion­al In­sti­tute for Con­ser­va­tion of His­tor­ic and Artist­ic Work­s).