They are a little more careful with their restorations these days. The cathedral was also restored by Baron Grimthorpe in the 19th century, who was apparently permitted to do what he liked since he was using his own money.
This is pretty cool. I wonder what other things we could apply a similar technique to? Leave the original untouched while helping people to visualize what it once looked like.
I wish I could find this again, but I recently saw a photo depicting a cool visualization setup.
It situated a wire sculpture between the observer and a set of old ruins. The wire sculpture was positioned in such a way that it appeared to delimit the bounds of the ruined structure as it would have been original built when the observer was in the correct position. It was, like this, a non-contact way of enhancing an existing artifact.
I am impressed with the 18 months' work to produce a means to see medieval works of art that were intentionally defaced without further disturbing the original pieces. It does seem a lofty endeavor, and I think it was well executed.
It took 18 months to create the light projections
This light projection was part of a £7 million project to help restore and transform St Albans Cathedral.
This is quite the special project.