The research presented here focuses on the situation of the unprecedented nineteenth-century work on the llotja or market house of Palma de Mallorca (1866-1905). Carried out while the restoration of the monument was in full swing, it resulted in an important theoretical and practical discussion, from which one can extract enlightening ideas for the current exercise of the discipline. In order to place the study in context, we start by taking a quick look at the legal and theoretical-practical panorama of Spain during the second half of the 19th century at both a national and a local level, paying special attention to the active Provincial Commission for Historical and Artistic Monuments of the Balearic Islands, and even more important for us, the Sub-commission for understanding the restoration work at the llotja. We explore the regulations for heritage protection and the evolution of these regulations, the contemporary interventions at both an Iberian and a Balearic level, which influenced the restoration of the llotja, and insofar as it is possible, we attempt to understand the thinking of those who prometed the action. With the context established, the research rests on the new objective-systematic method of architectural restoration, of the architects José Luís González and Albert Casals (2013), as a means of evaluating the work on the llotja from a double perspective: that of the preservation of the values that those in charge of the action had detected, and that of the precepts which would end up shaping the discipline. We use a characterization of the llotja in both space and time to develop the first of these, using discrimination criteria typical of the discipline (function, architectural type, place, history) as well as social criteria (prometer, use, meaning). We then go on to determine the assessment that was made of the monument from a three-fold perspective: instrumental, significant and documental. The comparison of this initial assessment with the finished work offered us information on the relevant level of conservation of the fundamental values of the llotja achieved with the nineteenth-century intervention. The second part of our analysis begins with the documentation that the intervention generated and from a direct observation of the monument, the aim being to see the solution that was given to basic questions of the discipline such as authenticity, false historic appearance, perceptibility, artistic assessment, patina, technical integration and adaptation to the setting. This part uncovers a voluntarily contained action, which stands in contrast to the prevailing current of the time: substantial interventions, utilitarian repairs, historicist reforms or stylistic reconstructions in accordance with the free interpretation of the reigning principies of Viollet-le-Duc. Our research also examines the interesting epilogue of the discussions on the end result between supporters and opponents. This confrontation of opinions led to a critical process that would add new arguments to the restoration of the llotja, and by extension, to the discipline. Contemporary criteria such as minimal intervention or architecturally false appearance, or such contemporary concepts within the field of the protection of cultural assets as world heritage, which are introduced "a posteriori", lend even more meaning to in investigations such as tje research that we are presenting here. Finally, the study is accompanied by a series of documents extracted from all the work dossiers deposited in local and state archives and relating to the work carried out on the llotje between 1866 and 1985. We have also included a number of historical images and maps, as well as a series of drawings prepared by ourselves, which on the one hand, have allowed us to correct certain historiographical errors that have existed since the very first studies of the building, while on the other they have facilitated a graphic interpretation of the solutions
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