OTYPE=R : metzjfcompleet.txt : 00592 | This is a letter addressed to the City Council of The Hague. Metzelaar and Vogel make critical comments on the proposed major repairs and renovations to the front and side facades of The Hague City Hall. The renovations in question had been proposed by a committee consisting of A.W. van Dam, L.H. Eberson and C. Muysken. According to Metzelaar and Vogel, the facades that existed at the time could be restored for a small sum of several thousand guilders. The result would have a greater artistic value than the technically unnecessary major intervention that would lead to a flawed and corrupted copy of the 'now existing fine art contribution of the 16th century.' The authors conclude: 'Not because the restoration would give a character of newness to the building, we are against it, but only because it would destroy something of high artistic value and is not able to give to the renewed one that artistic value, that type of execution which stamps it as a work of art of the 16th century.' Furthermore: 'the educated person, he who wants to learn about the ongoing development of his people from our works of art, who wishes to be inspired by them in order to arrive at his own creations, for him almost every restoration in the field of art is vandalism. Signed The Hague, May 9, 1881.