Abstract

Riegl’s seminal paper is the conceptual ground for much of our present grasp of monuments, museums and issues of restoration. His distinction between ‘intended,’ ‘unintended’ monuments and how it interacts with ‘age-value,’ brackets almost all discussions of these issues that mean to influence practical applications. But much of the scholarship on Riegl leaves his meaning unclear. Making this clear will occupy the first part of the paper. In particular the paper will address the difficult issue of ‘Kunstwollen,’ Reigl’s neologism for capturing the network of cultural values. This examination will point to the limits of his discussion. Next, these limits will be bracketed by reference to two authors who provide perspectives extreme from one another: Phillip Fehl’s work on classical art, and Martin Heidegger’s On The Origin of the Work of Art. Finally,a humanistic issue will drive the conclusion: what humanistic values inform the planetary or cross-cultural appreciation of monuments and museums evident in the explosion of tourism in the last decades?