Peter Thule Kristensen

In the 19th-century, architects could not conceive of designing without studying historical precedents as an integral part of the design process. As the Danish architect Vilhelm Klein (1835–1913) put it: 'An architectural style emerges only by retaining traditional forms and adapting them to new requirements until they eventually become something different entirely. If one attempts to force the development, one only ends up creating a copy of oneself”. Today, in an era of circularity, the study of precedents and historical building elements in architectural design has become relevant again. However, this also challenges the notion of a linear historical development that emerged in the 19th-century. 
 

Even though most major projects were in fact conversions, the relationship between Baroque architects and conversions and remodelling has not been investigated in the literature on the Baroque. This issue is of interest from the perspective of restoration history. Historical writing generally contrasts modernism's tabula rasa approach, favoured by an anti-historical avant-garde, with the style-historical reinterpretations of the nineteenth-century. However, the Baroque approach to reuse and recycling differs, bearing parallels with current discussions about circularity.