OLD TOWNS IN THE NEW TIME

The paper draws attention to the actual world wave of interventions of contrast modernistic dominant buildings into old towns, and names examples from Europe (Vienna, St. Petersburg, Rome, Athens, Prague etc.). Then the paper resumes historic evolution of the construction of different comprehensions of an,,old" and a,,new" town in the European thJnking from the 19th century, as well as the destiny of old towns particularly after the WWII. It critically judges the modernistic concepts of maintainance of the traditional urban fabric, similar in the communist world and in the West, and de facto both wasting. It emphasizes the civilization ethos of the strict monument care and points to the newest positive international tendencies (The INTBAU Venice Declaration on the Conservation of Monuments and Sites in the 21st Century from the year 2007, revisiting The International Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites from Venice, 1964).