The Bundesdenkmalamt is the name of the Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n Federal Monuments Office, a department of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture

Federal Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture (Austria)

The Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture is a ministry of the Austrian federal government. It has offices in Vienna...

 that is responsible for cultural heritage

Cultural heritage

Cultural heritage is the legacy of physical artifacts and intangible attributes of a group or society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations...

 in Austria.

History

The BDA was established in 1850 under Emperor Franz Joseph I, as a central commission for the preservation of National Heritage Site

National Heritage Site

A National Heritage Site is a location/site that regards a building, monument, archeological, geographical,natural or topological feature having a large value that has been registered by a governmental agency of a particular country...

s. Its duties include the preservation, restoration and cataloging of immoveable cultural heritage. The BDA also monitors the export provisions of the Austrian monument protection act for moveable cultural heritage. The BDA is divided into one central bureau and nine "land conservation districts" in the provincial capitals. At their disposal are the following central departments:

• Historic buildings
• Garden architecture (Historic garden conservation
  Historic garden conservation
  Historic garden conservation is a specialised type of historic preservation and restoration concerned with historical and landmark gardens and designed landscapes....
  
   and historic parks)
• Restored workshops Baudenkmalpflege
• Industrial heritage
  Industrial heritage
  Industrial heritage is an aspect of cultural heritage dealing specifically with the buildings and artifacts of industry which are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations, often forming a significant attraction for tourism.The...
  
   (historic factories)
• Export licenses for cultural heritage
• Archeological sites
• Heritage lists
• Inventory and Heritage Studies (publisher of the Georg Dehio
  Georg Dehio
  Georg Gottfried Julius Dehio , was a Baltic German art historian ....
  
   manual)
• "Sound monuments" (church bells and organs)
• Museums & libraries (excluding national museums)
• Legal Matters (conservation law)
• Art restoration workshops; namely the Central Chemical Laboratory of the Federal Monuments Office at the Vienna Arsenal
  Arsenal (Vienna)
  The Arsenal is a former military complex of buildings in the south-east of Vienna in the third district.Several brick buildings in a rectangle layout make up the complex which is located on a bank south of the Landstraßer Gürtel...
  
  , and the Architectural conservation restoration workshop in the Mauerbach Charterhouse.

Art and property restitution

The BDA is also responsible for restitution of some 8,000 objects and works of looted art which Austria in the time of National Socialism had acquired by devious means. Since often the original owners and all of their relatives had been killed during the Holocaust, restitution took place in the manner of auctions for the benefit of the Jewish community or to pay for material restitution of destroyed property, as in the case of the Jewish cemetery in Währing. Austria first did little to restore property to the damaged owner, but in the late 40's and 50's was put under pressure to make more of an effort according to the Moscow Declaration. As access to archives has slowly opened over time for provenance research, new clues and details such as stickers on the backs of auctioned objects that were photographed, have resulted in the discovery of previously "unfindable" owners. A set of such results was published in early December 2008 and exhibited at the Museum of Applied Arts

Museum für angewandte Kunst Wien

The Museum of Applied Arts or just MAK, a short version of its German name Museum für angewandte Kunst is located in Vienna, Austria.The museum is located in the 1st district of Vienna .-External links:*...

.

Periodicals

• Austrian magazine for art and historic preservation . Verlag F. Berger , 1947ff , ISSN 0029-9626 (quarterly).
• Restorers annual magazine.
• Studies on conservation and historic preservation. Verlag F. Berger (irregular).
• Austrian Art topography . Verlag F. Berger , 1907ff (irregular releases).
• Department of Natural Monuments, Hofburg (eds): Fund reports from Austria . Verlag F. Berger , 1920ff , ISBN 0429-8926 (annually, as well as material specifications and special volumes).
• Theodor Brückler, Ulrike Nimeth; Federal Monuments Office (ed.): Encyclopedia of the Austrian people Preservation from 1850 to 1990 - 2002. Verlag F. Berger, Vienna 2001 , ISBN 978-3-85028-344-1 .

Literature

• Walter Frodl : idea and realization. If the state of conservation in Austria. Vienna, Cologne, Graz 1988, Bundesdenkmalamt Vienna (Ed.): Studies on conservation and historic preservation. XIII
• Manfred Koller : The History of the Restoration in Austria. In: History of the Restoration in Europe / Histoire de la Restoration en Europe. I, Worms 1991 , p. 65-85, Bundesdenkmalamt Vienna (Ed.): Acts of International Congress Restauriergeschichte / Histoire de la Restoration. XIII, Interlaken 1989