The restoration of the room shell of Johannesspitalskirche (Hospital Church of St. John) in Salzburg was completed in 2023. Johannesspitalskirche was built according to plans of the later Habsburg court architect Johann
Bernhard Fischer von Erlach (1656–1723), who began working in 1691 on behalf of the Prince-Archbishop Johann Ernst Graf von Thun und Hohenstein (1643–1709) in Salzburg. One strong indicator of the breaks in the biography of a historical monument is the changing of its colors. The periodic maintenance and repainting of architectural surfaces over the centuries attests to the human desire for change. The restored layered stairs at the wall and stucco surfaces offer insights into the rich history of monuments. Some might think these changes refer only to the time before the monument was granted protected status and that preserving historical monuments would permanently preclude any desire to make a fashionable change to the architectural color. Countless examples prove that the opposite is true. The esthetic consequence of a three-decade campaign of restoration attempts in the Johannesspitalskirche and the following decision to restore the original color led to an architecturally
coherent (and unexpected) “new” appearance.