The Boundary of Authenticity

The gilded temple that you see above was built in 1397 and has survived through centuries of warfare and bombing till now. The gold leafing on the building is all original and it has not lost its original splendor through the ages. Unlike other buildings, kinkakuji seems to have survived beyond all odds and persists to the present day so that the citizens of the world may have a glimpse into the past. This building is 100% authentic, untouched since the day it was built and looking just as good as it did back then. Isn't that such a wonderful story? Personally I think it is very amazing for a building to survive hundreds of years considering it is built of wood, prominently located so that it is prone to human theft and destruction (some may even want to take bits of gold leafing home as souvenir), and visited by hundreds of people everyday with the resultant wear and tear. Isn't it refreshing to see a building that is tectonically real, that all of the material were the original instead of a replica, a repair, or a silly reconstruction that only looks like the original from the outside? Especially since the building is gold! How precious this building is! You can clearly agree that it is a candidate for further protection and is no doubt worthy of world heritage status.

........Now what if I were to told you that I just made up a huge lie and that the building you see above was reconstructed 60 years ago from scratch and that nothing is original? Do you still want to preserve the building? We can building a couple hundreds of these all over the world with no problem. All the material is new and so it's not necessary to attempt to preserve the material. As long as we know how, we can do it again. Since we are able to repeat this process, should we attempt to preserve this building? Centuries ago, when this was first built, did they have the same thoughts as well, that we can just do it again? If the tectonic memory of it is all we need, that in the end, all we need is to see a kinkakuji is Kyoto, does its materiality need to be old? What are we preserving, the centuries old wood and gilding, or the spirit of kinkakuji? Furthermore, if even the original construction was thought to be replaceable, at what point does a building become irreplaceable? At what point does the material, the wood and gilding, becomes old enough so that we would want to preserve it for its own sake? Where is the boundary of tectonic memory, of material authenticity?