Dresden’s Frauenkirche: Modernists want to stop reconstructions like this. (pixels.com)

Modernists are trying to reverse trends in cultural-heritage preservation by subtle interventions in key standards of the European Union. Writing from Norway, Audun Engh of the International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture & Urbanism (INTBAU) warned me today that modernists are “planning to introduce recommendations that modernism (‘contemporary design’) should be a required style for new construction at EU-funded cultural-heritage sites.”

Mind you, that says “required,” and required in “cultural-heritage sites” – which translates into mandating ugly new buildings and additions in the most beautiful districts of Europe’s most beautiful cities. That modernists believe that this sort of change must be introduced means they recognize how preservation standards have shifted in recent decades. (Of course, they would not describe it the way I just did.)

One of the worrisome recommendations for the EU made by ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments…