Introduction

Of all the architectural movements that emerged in the twentieth century, reconstruction has proved the most successful. What sounds odd at first turns out to be plausible on taking a closer look at the facts. Despite the phenomenon of reconstruction being poorly investigated, no other recent architectural trend can claim comparable persistence along with global validity. Reconstruction, understood as the facsimile replication of lost buildings, emerged as a novel way of dealing with loss and evolved into a popular manner of adopting the past. Its significance can hardly be overestimated as we find reconstructions among highly prestigious current building projects: Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, the Berlin City Palace and the Gyeongbok Palace in Seoul are but a few examples that represent the meticulous reconstructions of bygone architectural works that have been resurrected after being either absent for decades or replaced by other buildings. ¹ These are landmarks at representative places in capital cities and they possess a tremendous power for the building of identity. However, they do not use the current architectural language and, hence, do not seem to express contemporary political, social and cultural ideals. Instead, these reconstructions restage history from the perspective of those in power today.