Institute of Historic Building Conservation No 107 November 2008 Making conservation mainstream in Northern Ireland
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C O N T E X T 1 0 7 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 8 1 Context Cover: ‘Nutley’, 37 Adelaide Park, Malone Suburb, Belfast, was seen on the IHBC walkabout (see p13). Designed in 1902 by Vincent Craig, brother of the then prime minister, it won the Royal Academy Exhibition Award in 1908. (Photo: Harrison Photography) New horizons in Northern Ireland Editorial The last time IHBC council visited Northern Ireland, note national council member Sharon Brown and Alan Oliver (p13), was in 2004 for the IHBC Annual School in Londonderry. Conservation in Northern Ireland has changed considerably since then, opening up new opportunities and challenges for the institute. The IHBC is seeking to work closely with government to ensure that emerging proposals for the planning system provide for the conservation of historic places, and for conservation officers and historic buildings advisors to have the necessary skills and wide range of competencies. This would allow for conservation officers covering the full complement of heritage asset regulation and management: conservation areas, listed buildings, historic parks and gardens, and archaeology. IHBC chair Dave Chetwyn (p18) sees Belfast as a city in transition.The peace process has brought a huge and welcome increase in investor confidence.The danger, Chetwyn warns, is that shortterm opportunism will harm longer-term economic prosperity, to the detriment of the needs and aspirations of local communities. Developers’ bulldozers have already caused needless losses of historic buildings. ‘At a pivotal and delicate time for Northern Ireland politics,’ Chetwyn writes, ‘there seems to be a genuine concern among senior politicians to avoid the needless loss of historic buildings and places, and an appreciation of the value of conservation to the quality of life.’ He is confident that the politicians also appreciate that effective community engagement in the development process is essential. But there will be plenty of other matters vying for priority. IHBC director Seán O’Reilly (p19) explains the IHBC’s role in this.The objectives of the institute’s Northern Ireland programme are to raise the institute’s presence and profile; to underpin its position as the UK’s professional body for historic environment conservation specialists; to represent the institute as a substantial, informed and proactive charity and service provider; and to provide an accessible resource to help and guide change under evolving planning structures. ‘Volunteers from the Northern Ireland branch, supported by the national office, delivered a remarkable success,’ O’Reilly writes, ‘depending entirely on the kind of capacity-building partnership that distinguishes so much of the institute’s best work.’ As Brown and Oliver suggest, the IHBC is well placed to help channel, facilitate and support the conservation of Northern Ireland’s historic places. The Institute of historic building conservation www.ihbc.org.uk Registered as a Charity Number 1061593. Company Limited by Guarantee. Registered in England Number 3333780. Registered Office: 3 Stafford Road,TunbridgeWells, Kent TN2 4QZ. IHBC Officers President Eddie Booth email [email protected] Chairman Dave Chetwyn email [email protected] Vice Chair Sheila Stones email [email protected] Secretary Richard Morrice email [email protected] Treasurer Michael Knights email [email protected] Membership Secretary Jo Evans email [email protected] Education Secretary John Preston email [email protected] Publicity Secretary Doug Black email [email protected] Law & Practice Coordinator vacant email [email protected] Director Seán O’Reilly email [email protected] Projects Officer Fiona Newton email [email protected] Consultant Consultations Coordinator James Caird email [email protected] Membership Services Officer Devon DeCelles email [email protected] Administration Officer Lydia Porter email [email protected] IHBC Committee Chairs Policy Mike Brown email [email protected] Membership & Ethics Jo Evans email [email protected] Finance & Resources Richard Morrice email [email protected] Education John Preston email [email protected] Communications & Outreach vacant email [email protected] Branch Officers North Geoff Underwood Tel 0191 433 3435 NorthWest Kate Borland Tel 0161 2344556 Yorkshire Keith Knight Tel 01904 658482 West Midlands Charles Shapcott Tel 020 7973 3660 East Midlands Roy Lewis tel 01332 591175 South Julia Foster Tel 01296 585888 SouthWest Ian Lund Tel 01380 724911 East Anglia StaceyWeiser-Jones Tel 01954 713178 South East David Kincaid Tel 01227 862185 London David McDonald Tel 020 8881 6724 Scotland Charles Strang Tel 01835 822560 Wales Nathan Blanchard Tel 01285 642428 Northern Ireland Sharon BrownTel 028 9754 3087 Republic of Ireland Cormac O’Sullivan Tel 00353 5677 62907 Business Office Jubilee House, High Street, Tisbury, Wiltshire SP3 6HA England Tel 01747 873133 Fax 01747 871718 email [email protected] Briefing 2 Out of Context 4 TheWriter’s Voice 4 Periodically 5 Conference report: ICOMOS Triennial General Assembly, Quebec Dennis Rodwell 8 Conference report: Tall storeys: IHBC London branch conference Dennis Rodwell 10 Conference report: Thinking outside the heritage box Keith Parsons 11 IHBC council in Northern Ireland Sharon Brown and Alan Oliver 13 Notes from the chair 18 Director’s cut 19 Modern ventilation in historic fabric David Clark 22 Recycling historic buildings Edward Holland 24 Value for our investment Geoff Dawe 27 The CommonwealthWar Graves Commission Barry Edwards 29 Conserving war memorials Joy Russell 31 Remembering the cold war Devon DeCelles 35 War, peace and Britannia in the reign of Hadrian Graham Tite 37 Membership notes 41 Vox pop 41 Book reviews 42 Products and services 45 Advertisers index 48 Institute ofHistoricBuildingConservation No107 November 2008 Making conservation mainstream in Northern Ireland
2 C O N T E X T 1 0 7 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 8 Context Briefing Copy deadlines Context is published five times a year, in March, May, July, September and November.The copy deadlines in 2009 are: Issue Deadline March, Issue 108 19 January May, Issue 109 16 March July, Issue 110 18 May September, Issue 111 20 July November, Issue 112 21 September Editor Rob Cowan Editorial Coordinator Fiona Newton 21 George Street, Louth, Lincolnshire LN11 9JU Tel 01507 602567 email [email protected] Editorial Board Fiona Newton (chair) Susan Brook (treasurer) Nigel Crowe (main features) Peter de Figueiredo (book reviews) Michael Taylor (main features) Cartoons by Rob Cowan Context is distributed to all members of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation. © Institute of Historic Building Conservation 2008 ISSN 0958-2746 Publisher Published for the Institute of Historic Building Conservation by Cathedral Communications Limited, High Street, Tisbury,Wiltshire, England SP3 6HA Tel 01747 871717 Fax 01747 871718 email [email protected] www.buildingconservation.com Non-member subscriptions to Context Context is available to non-members of the IHBC at an annual subscription rate, including postage, of: United Kingdom £50.00 Elsewhere £75.00 Subscription orders, together with remittances payable to Institute of Historic Building Conservation, should be sent to the IHBC Business Office at Jubilee House, High Street, Tisbury, Wiltshire SP3 6HA. The views expressed in Context are not necessarily held by the IHBC or the publisher. Neither the publisher nor the IHBC shall be under any liability whatsoever in respect of contributed articles. We gratefully acknowledge the support of firms whose advertisements appear throughout this publication.While every effort has been made to ensure that the information contained in this issue of Context is current and correct, neither the IHBC nor the publisher can be held responsible for any errors or omissions which may occur. Constructive conservation English Heritage has championed the 20 best conservation-led development schemes in England. It says that all of them demonstrate a growing collaborative relationship between heritage and development professionals and the approach to saving heritage called constructive conservation. The new English Heritage book Constructive Conservation in Practice identifies Park Hill in Sheffield, Kings Cross Central in London, the Molineux Hotel inWolverhampton and the Bluecoat in Liverpool as among the successful schemes at the forefront of modern conservation practice. The 20 heritage-led development schemes championed in Constructive Conservation in Practice are: Kings Cross Central, London; Crystal Palace, London; Clore Learning Centre, Hampton Court, London; Regent Palace Hotel, London; Royal Clarence Yard, Gosport; Graylingwell Hospital, Chichester; Princesshay, Exeter; Lake Shore Development, Bristol; Bayshill House, Cheltenham;West Front, Bury St Edmunds Abbey, Suffolk; Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh; The Roundhouse, Derby; Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon; Molineux Hotel, Wolverhampton; The Midland Hotel, Morecambe; The Bluecoat, Liverpool, Gorton Monastery, Manchester; Blencowe Hall, Penrith; Park Hill, Sheffield; and Cooper’s Studios, Newcastle. east. As well as its schoolmaster’s house, manual instruction workshop and other ancillary buildings, the school also retains its original railings, gates and gateposts for the playground. Despite still being used by two schools, the Stonebridge School site has been earmarked by Brent Council for redevelopment, a move which would destroy one of the last vestiges of 19th century heritage in this area of high-rise estates. Gustav Adolfs Kyrka (The Swedish Church), Liverpool, Merseyside (1884,WD Caröe, Grade II listed) This church, built to minister to Liverpool’s large population of Swedish mariners, still maintains a strong congregation drawn from across the Nordic countries. The Church of Sweden now intends to pulls out, however, leaving this remarkable building, a red-brick reinterpretation of a Scandinavian stave church, without a use.The Friends organisation is working to consider the building’s future, while the council is pushing for the building to be upgraded to Grade II*. Newsome Mill, Huddersfield, Kirklees (mid-19th century, architect unknown, Grade II listed) Battles have raged around this striking mid-Victorian worsted mill since it was sold to a developer in 2006. Plans to demolish the main body of the building were shelved late last year when the listing for the clock tower was extended to cover the whole building. Since then, the derelict mill has been under siege from vandals, thieves and arsonists who have taken advantage of the inadequate security of the site to set fires, steal materials and architectural features, and smash the faces on the mill clock. Spurred into action by a vigorous local campaign, Kirklees Council issued an urgent works notice in July, requiring the owner to secure the site.This has improved the situation slightly, although the building itself is still far from weather-tight and there are now plans to fill in and develop the mill ponds. Red Lion Public House, Handsworth, Birmingham (1901–2, James and Lister Lea, Grade II* listed) The latest in a string of West Midlands pubs to face an uncertain future, this outstanding building with its splendid interior tiles and fittings has stood empty and vulnerable since it closed last year.The city council has taken action to ensure that a full record of the pub has been made and to press Top ten threatened buildings The Victorian Society has announced its top ten endangered buildings for 2008, following an appeal to uncover the best and most threatened Victorian and Edwardian buildings in England and Wales.The ten are: Stonebridge School, Brent, London (1898, GES Laurence, unlisted) An impressive survival, Stonebridge School is one of the most complete late‑Victorian Board Schools in the south Blencowe Hall, Penrith (© English Heritage, James O Davies)
C O N T E X T 1 0 7 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 8 3 for adequate security for the site. Efforts are underway to resolve structural problems and to find a new owner and a suitable use. St Marys’ Church,Widnes, Cheshire (1864, EW Pugin, Grade II listed) The building would have been demolished in early 2007 but for an eleventh hour decision to list it Grade II.While the move halted the demolition plans, it did nothing to alter the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Liverpool’s resolve to lock the building and walk away, leaving this fine Italian gothic building to take its chances with pigeons and vandals. With the Catholic population ofWidnes on the increase, thanks to the arrival of numerous Eastern Europeans, many groups, including the local council, are anxious for the building to be reopened or given an alternative use. Chapels at Cathays Cemetery, Cardiff, SouthWales (1859, RGThomas, Grade II listed) The chapels at Cathays Cemetery are in a sorry state. Built severally to accommodate dissenters and members of the established church, the chapels closed for services in 1992 and have been derelict ever since. Good news came recently in the shape of a £100,000 grant from Cardiff Council. However, an internal structural survey has since shown the condition of the buildings to be much worse than originally thought and revealed that they are inhabited by a colony of bats.The Cathays Cemetery Friends Group is urging the council to double its grant so that these fascinating records ofWelsh religious history can receive the attention they deserve. Moseley Road Baths, Balsall Heath, Birmingham (1907,William Hale and Son, Grade II* listed) Despite continued pressure from the Friends of Moseley Road Baths, Birmingham City Council appears resolved to push ahead with plans to close the pool, stripping England of the last Grade II*-listed Edwardian baths in which it is still possible to swim. Already, the First Class pool is derelict, leaving only the Second Class pool in use. Holy Trinity, Hove, East Sussex (1863–4, JWoodman, Grade II listed) Total demolition threatens this unusual red-brick building, which has been treated as the poor relation of the many nationally significant churches in Brighton and Hove, despite being the only church in the area to have an external pulpit. Other proposals for the building abound.Yet Chichester Diocese has continued to pursue a scheme which would see the building demolished to make way for a housing development. Palace Theatre, Plymouth, Devon (1898,Wimperis & Arber, Grade II* listed) Last used as a theatre in 1981, the Palace Theatre was run as a nightclub until 2006. Now empty and poorly maintained in an area known for vandalism, this outstanding former music hall, with its coloured tiles depicting scenes of the Spanish Armada, is crying out for attention. Campaigners, including the Theatres Trust, fear that unless action is taken soon to shore up the building and find a viable future for it, Plymouth could lose its only highly graded listed Victorian theatre for good. Fletcher Convalescent Home, Cromer, Norfolk (1893, E Boardman and Son, unlisted) The former Fletcher Convalescent Home was converted into a geriatric unit, then closed and sold for development. Planning permission for its conversion to housing has been granted, but the requirement for some of the accommodation to be affordable has proved a sticking point, which has delayed work on the building for several years. Tackling the skills deficit An initiative to raise design standards has been launched with unprecedented support from design and planning organisations. Capacitycheck, a new method of appraising and developing urban design skills, has been published by the Urban Design Alliance (UDAL), representing the built environment professions. It was developed while the IHBC’s David Lovie was in the chair of UDAL. Capacitycheck’s sponsors include English Heritage, CABE and English Partnerships. The uses of Capacitycheck include benchmarking an organisation’s existing skills; devising training programmes; deciding the coverage of a local authority’s planning policy and guidance; drawing up a job description and person specification; and drawing up the brief for an urban design project. Capacitycheck assesses the present skills, awareness and understanding of an individual or organisation, or determines what capacity a person, project or organisation requires. It supports training, education and learning on the job for councillors, design champions, communities, clients and a wide range of built environment professionals.These are the people on whom higher standards of design depend. In the words of the Capacitycheck guide and website: ‘Capacitycheck can help professionals to free themselves from The architect Biscoe+Stanton has been appointed by St James Garlickhythe in the City of London to carry out significant building and refurbishment works to one of London’s few remaining churches built by Sir ChristopherWren following the Great Fire of London in 1666. Boasting the highest ceiling in the City after St Paul’s Cathedral, the church is often referred to asWren’s Lantern.The work will include creating a new parish room, toilet and kitchen. their silos; politicians to become effective champions of design; communities to be empowered; landowners and developers to discover the value of making places; and students to learn how to work in an urban context.’ Architecture and Design Scotland has announced the first Capacitycheck pilot project.The method will be used in Inverness by the Highland Council. An assessment of the skills available to the council and other agencies will be followed by a capacity-building plan. The aim is to help everyone involved in the planning process to raise design standards of development. Training is being offered to people will become the first Capacitycheck champions. (Applicants for a free one-day training course should email [email protected]). Capacitycheck is available to download free (and order a free printed copy) at www.capacitycheck.co.uk.
4 C O N T E X T 1 0 7 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 8 From Species of Spaces by Georges Perec (1974) TO COVER the world, to cross it in every direction, will only ever be to know a few square metres of it, a few acres, tiny incursions into disembodied vestiges, small, incidental excitements, improbable quests congealed in a mawkish haze a few details of which will remain in our memory: out beyond the railway stations and the roads, and the gleaming runways of airports, and the narrow strips of land illuminated for a brief moment by an overnight express, out beyond the panoramas too long anticipated and discovered too late, and the accumulations of stones and the accumulations of works of art, it will be three children perhaps running along a bright white road, or else a small house on the way out of Avignon, with a wooden lattice door once painted green, the silhouetted outline of trees near Saarbrücken, four uproarious fat men on the terrace of a café in the outskirts of Naples, the main street of Brionne, in the Eure, two days before Christmas, around six in the evening, the coolness of a covered gallery in the souk at Sfax, a tiny dam across a Scottish loch, the hairpin bends of a road near Corvol-l’Orgueilleux. And with these, the sense of the world’s concreteness, irreducible, immediate, tangible, of something clear and closer to us: of the world, no longer as a journey having constantly to be remade, not as a race without end, a challenge having constantly to be met, not as the one pretext of a despairing acquisitiveness, not as the illusion of a conquest, but as the rediscovery of a meaning, the perceiving that the earth is a form of writing, a geography of which we had forgotten that we ourselves are the authors. ‘Aweek or so ago I went with my mother to the UK premier in Liverpool of Terrence Davies’ new film, Of Time and the City. One of the benefits of Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture is to have brought Terrence Davies back to filmmaking. Among the old footage used in the film are shots of St Peter’s Catholic Church on Seel Street in the centre of Liverpool, where my mother went to confession 40 years ago. It’s now a very flash Cuban-themed bar and restaurant where we went for a drink after the showing. ‘Not everyone will be happy about that transformation. Part of me isn’t. But heritage is always going to raise difficult and complicated questions. It is delicate and sensitive territory – for politicians and place-makers – how far we go in adapting historic buildings to give them – and us – a viable future. In a changing world we need flexible and responsible systems alongside local debate. ‘My constituency, Leigh, boasts some of the best industrial heritage in the country, direct, unbroken connections between the town today and the birth of the industrial revolution. But this can be a difficult inheritance for local politicians to deal with, and leads to some challenging debates. It’s absolutely right that we should be encouraging people to get more involved and have more of a say in what happens with their local environment. But “preserve” is an interesting term. Because to my mind, we don’t have the option of creating hard-and-fast rules for the protection of most of our heritage. ‘We are a country blessed with a long and spectacular heritage. Though actually only a relatively small proportion of our sum total of buildings and sites are to all intents and purposes inviolable. That’s why we have and will continue to have Grade I listing. ‘More are designated under a regime that seeks to ensure that their cultural value is first recognized and then taken into account when later decisions are made that affect their future. At this point, at the planning stage, architectural and historic value has to be weighed against economic, social and other relevant considerations, including environmental pressures.Wise judgements have to be made. ‘I know you understand this, so together we need to challenge those who see conservation as being necessarily in conflict with what I’d loosely call “modernisation” objectives – finding new uses for redundant buildings or lowering the carbon footprint of older buildings.We need to make it clear that in the last decade we’ve seen heritage playing a prominent, if not a leading role in economic and social regeneration throughout the country. Older buildings can present the solution not the problem... ‘Nothing brings the case for heritage into disrepute more than vocal conservationists attempting to apply the brakes at the last minute, often making sensible objections easier to dismiss. It’s actually the case that developers who work with heritage at an early stage often credit the partnership with producing something better, more interesting and more appropriate than without the involvement… ‘This government is committed to heritage protection reform and to pursuing the first heritage protection bill for several decades. It is in a good state of readiness to be introduced at the earliest opportunity and the government is committed to doing so. ‘I can’t pre-empt the Queen’s Speech, but I can make sure that we build maintain momentum behind reform whether or not the Bill is part of the legislative programme for the next session of Parliament.’ Extracts from culture secretary Andy Burnham’s speech at launch of Heritage Counts 2008
C O N T E X T 1 0 7 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 8 5 Periodically… This column in Context 106 (September) highlighted the preoccupation of many heritage journals with the forthcoming heritage protection reforms. Although sector publications have other wideranging interests, concerns and achievements to promote, an evident gap has emerged between the position of the proponents and the implementers about the adequacy of the resources required. Regular readers will be aware that SPAB (Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings) has voiced concern about this for some time. It has devoted a large part of its latest newsletter Cornerstone (Volume 29, No 3) to one aspect of the crisis, the plight and prospects of local authority conservation officers. Mathew Slocombe, who gave evidence to the recent select committee inquiry on the reforms, bemoans the ministerial indifference to widespread concerns on resources. Patrick Sawer replies with a critical analysis entitled ‘New law, no enforcers?’, which quotes the umbrella submission to DCMS by the IHBC and the fellow professional institutions as to why proper resourcing is essential. Cornerstone has also interviewed seasoned conservation professionals and IHBC members, including Pippa Colchester of Essex County Council, John Preston of Cambridge City Council and Jane Davies of Southampton City Council (all IHBC members) about the problems and pressures of front-line local authority heritage management. Roger Tilley, regarded as the very first conservation officer (for Chester 1972), was also interviewed.Will the message from the grassroots, repeated through SPAB, have any more influence? As we head into recession, don’t hold your breath. IHBC director Sean O’Reilly makes a powerful case for a statutory duty on local planning authorities to have care for historic places. This proposition has been rejected by the government, but it would make the secretary of state’s statement about ‘heritage at the heart of planning’ something more than the empty slogan it has become. Related to this theme, Philip Venning’s editorial, welcomes the decision by English Heritage to include Grade II listed buildings on a national at-risk register. But Venning rightly asks the questions on every conservation officer’s lips.Who is to do it while the Heritage Protection Review is also being introduced?Where would the resources to remove those entries from the register come from? Elsewhere in the edition, SPAB reports an alarming proposal by water companies to treat parish churches like businesses for the purposes of water charges. If implemented, this would leave even less money available for repairs and maintenance. There is a report on the significant sums English Heritage is having to spend to counter vandalism and anti-social behaviour at scheduled ancient monuments (at Thetford Priory, Norfolk, security fencing will cost £100,000). Two ancient towers in Germany are illustrated which lean, apparently quite happily, significantly more out of perpendicular than the leaning tower of Pisa. At Bad Frankenhausen, the tower and steeple are 14ft out of plumb. There is a report on the proposed sale of a 15th century un-listed redundant Suffolk barn which the farmer would like to see saved and disposed of complete for re-erection rather than preside over its eventual complete decay. Irrespective of the issue of the loss of its historic site context, it had to be asked why so many ancient historic structures like this are known to exist but remain unprotected. Looking at the wider sector beyond the concerns of the Heritage Protection Review, the November issue of the Journal of Architectural Conservation (Vol 14, No 3) examines a variety of diverse issues loosely connected by a common thread of the ‘patina of age’. While patina is a characteristic we much admire in old buildings, it is one visible manifestation of the inexorable process of decay.The survival of ancient buildings confirms that decay has happened slowly in the past, but concern over climate change is challenging assumptions about the future longevity of historic structures and the speed with which that decay may proceed, especially when this is brought about by increased incidence of flooding from extreme weather events. The topicality of flood risk and its mitigation is highlighted by Richard Davies’ article about the Red Store, Lerryn, Cornwall. A humble building of modest scale and in poor condition, the Red Store was nevertheless considered sufficiently valuable to the local community to justify acquisition and conversion to a resource centre and craft workshop, incorporating protection from inter-tidal flooding and potential climate change. This is an example perhaps of one of the secretary of state’s much-vaunted future ‘local designations’. In this case, neglect and decay had progressed beyond the stage of pleasing patina to serious decay. One issue of consequence has been the balancing
6 C O N T E X T 1 0 7 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 8 plaster floors of unknown composition but good mechanical characteristics within the 14th century castle of Karlstejn in the Czech Republic. The authors describe in detail how these materials were subjected to detailed analysis, comparison with ancient mortars and winter exposure testing, so that repair mortar with similar characteristics could be developed. The diversity of heritage concerns is also illustrated by the recent Association of Preservation Technology Bulletin The Journal of Preservation Technology (Volume 39, No 1). Niklas Vigener and James Jamieson describe the challenges in reinstating three monumental skylights in the NewYork State Capitol by way of contemporary interventions, without compromising the buildings’ significant architectural and historic features. The Capitol was designed by an English-born architect, Thomas Fuller (who was also responsible for the Canadian parliament buildings in Ottawa), but several others were involved, and significant changes were made to the design and budget before it was completed. The Great Western Staircase, constructed over 16 years between 1883 and 1899, acquired the nickname ’The Million Dollar Staircase‘ because of its extravagant cost. It suffered a catastrophic fire in 1912. The recent skylight project had to balance authenticity with the functional, pragmatic day-to-day requirements of a large working seat of government. The spectacular transforming effect of daylight on the interior is well illustrated. It provides ‘a flood of light’ which meets the vision of Isaac Perry, the last architect to be involved with the original building,. Continuing a capitol theme, Frank Welsh describes the research, analysis and pigment composition of historic architectural paint relating to a 1850s brown, zinc-based primer used on cast iron at the United States Capitol in Washington. This shows that it contains pigments made from the crushed ore of frankenite and zincite, manufactured by the New Jersey Zinc Company, which occurred only in Franklin and Sterling Hill, New Jersey, where manufacture eventually ceased in the latter part of the 20th century. The journal contains a useful pullout section on mortar analysis (Part 1: mortar-making materials) which is the fifth in the Association of Preservation Technology’s Practice Points series. The aim of the series is to present essential information on technical topics related to preservation practice for both new and experienced professionals. Oak shingle cladding is common in the United States and is not unknown in England. It is found mainly on churches. Also common to both sides of the Atlantic are losses or absence of traditional skills. James Houston and John Fugelso describe the historical background to the restoration of shingleroofed buildings in Pennsylvania and their practical demonstration projects for roofing contractors. They explain fundamentals including the materials and tools of shingle making, and the anticipated speed of production. Especially valuable is the description of the practicalities and problems: fabrication, sawing, installation and nailing; and lessons about setting out the rows and courses, orientation and side-lapping. The authors conclude with observations about service life and protective treatments which practitioners will find insightful when faced with similar situations. In the final article, Anat Geva looks at the preservation of the original architectural features of Bauhaus apartments in Tel Aviv, a UNESCO world heritage site since 2003, and noted for having the world’s highest concentration of modern movement residential buildings. The conservation of these buildings had involved stabilisation of the structures, repair and renovation of materials and systems, reopening enclosed balconies, and replacement of wall- and window-mounted air conditioning units. The development of the international style in Israel saw adaptation to the county’s economic, cultural and environmental conditions. The author argues that, from the outset, sustainable-design solutions were developed as part of the search for a simple, functional, economic, of the effects of aging with new work required to make it fit for purpose. Repair requires safe working access and protection from the elements, but the skills of the scaffolder are rarely described.When the scaffolding is extensive or complex, requiring the involvement of a structural engineer, a description of the approach is particularly useful. There is often merit in having scaffolding pre-designed. Edward Morton, an IHBC member and accredited conservation engineer, outlines a number of common issues. Arguments for and against pre-designed scaffolding are illustrated by its use to enable re-roofing of the main part of the massive 17th century Stowe House, Buckinghamshire. Patina as an indication of durability or decay also indirectly underpins the article on Caen stone by Tim Palmer, a geologist with a longstanding interest in the use of limestone. Caen was the only French stone imported into England in the middle ages and widely used until the reformation. Much survives, but not all medieval material was of the same high quality. Although use of Caen was revived in the 19th century, weathering on some buildings was calamitous, damaging the stone’s reputation. Morton notes a current aesthetic preference for the darker, more yellow Caen, despite this being potentially less durable. He recommends more thorough testing of its petrographic characteristics. TimYates, technical director of the BRE, builds on Palmer’s analysis by examining the problems associated identifying the stone types used in the construction and repair of Cloister Court at the Palace of Westminster, London. This example illustrates the difficulties of identifying appropriate replacement Caen stone and practically illustrates the importance of understanding the petrography. Another article extending to other cultures and their conservation concerns is a piece by Fodil Fadli about the disappearance of hammams, the historic bathhouses of Cairo. These were a building type important to the urban fabric of historic Islamic cities, but rarely studied by academics or those concerned with the conservation of historic buildings. Fadli usefully puts the purpose of these buildings in their wider social, religious and geographical context and, in the light of their neglect and disappearance, suggests guidelines for their sustainable adaptive reuse. Zuzana Slizkova and Milos Drdacky address the questions of the analysis and replication of 19th century cast, in situ
C O N T E X T 1 0 7 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 8 7 Ben Nicholson and Bridget Riley, among many more. Pearson rightly asks how works by such familiar names are still unknown and widely overlooked. Some have been lost by demolition, reconstruction and even burial, as in the case of the ArmadaWay, Plymouth 1987-8 (a mural by Edward Pond and Kenneth Clark that was filled in by the city council in 2004). The author feels that the wide geographic spread of this art for the people has contributed to a lack of art-historical and academic interest. Approximately 45 such murals are formally listed in the UK.While Pearson identifies a significant number of murals that survive, she highlights several under threat, for example in Sunderland and East Kilbride. As remarked upon in this column recently, the magazine of the Twentieth Century Society provides a densely packed and informative read. There are features by Ken Powell on Leeds University buildings of the 1960s and 70s; Anthony Jennings on post-war parsonages; Alan Powers on James Stirling’s Florey Building, Oxford (as a prelude to a 2009 conference on the architect’s early academic buildings); and JonWright on the continuing saga of architectural and constructional style, compatibility with Tel Aviv’s hot and humid climate. Over the years modifications have related to family growth, economic prosperity, the influences of other fashionable styles and that perennial, lack of maintenance. Geva looks in particular at the thermal qualities inherent in the original design concept, concluding that if this is sustainable, preservation work that exposes its inherent energy components will enhance and contribute to its thermal comfort.While she acknowledges that not all the original 1920s and 30s designs were sustainable, perhaps based on a misunderstanding by immigrant architects of the local climate, most could be made more sustainable by evaluating the thermal conditions of the building before undertaking preservation works. This leads neatly to the latest edition of C20, the magazine of the Twentieth Century Society. In the latest issue (Autumn 2008), Lynn Pearson, author of Public Art Since 1950, draws attention to the diminishing legacy of post-war public murals, many of which were completed by an outstanding roll-call of British artists: John Piper, Edward Bawden, Victor Passmore, Mitzi Cunliffe, Battersea Power Station. There are good reports of trips to discover, the unexpected delights of 20th century buildings on theWirral; to Bata Town in Essex (with its strong Czech influences); to Bromley and Biggin Hill; and several others. Twentieth Century Society members certainly get about a lot.Where they can not, the reports are highly informative. Bob Kindred MBE Conservation planning and heritage expertise For further information about how DPP Heritage can help with your requirements contact: Roger Mascall on 020 7092 3600 or [email protected] www.dppllp.com DPP Heritage provides a range of specialist conservation services to both private and public sector clients, including major property developers, government departments and agencies, local authorities and English Heritage.
8 C O N T E X T 1 0 7 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 8 ICOMOS Triennial General Assembly, Quebec Signs of a revitalised, more relevant, ICOMOS The abstract concept of spirit of place is not perhaps best suited to the pragmatists among us, especially given that we in the UK live in an essentially humanist and secular age, where the underlying term genius loci has its origins in mythology, spirituality and religion. So the idea of attending a week-long conference to debate ‘Finding the Spirit of Place’ was, on the face of it, a curious one. Even more so, as it was the theme of the 16th General Assembly and Scientific Symposium of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), a body whose specialised committees are all entitled ‘scientific’. ICOMOS is a non-governmental professional organisation whose international headquarters are in Paris. Founded in 1965, it now embraces 9,500 individual and institutional members worldwide. It boasts the 1964 Venice Charter as its baseline doctrinal text, and traditionally its focus has been on the preservation of historic monuments, ensembles and sites. The concept of ‘managing change’ is anathema to its fundamentalist members. The statistics of this event, which took place in Quebec City this autumn, were impressive: 853 participants from 77 countries and more than 500 proposals submitted for papers and posters. For the first time at an ICOMOS General Assembly, the main event was preceded by an International Youth Forum, with 131 participants from 29 countries. The maintenance of monuments and sites is not simply a matter of preserving those selected for conservation that have been allocated iconic status. Instead, the question raised was of securing continuity of the local skills and creative processes on which identity and sense of community – sense of place – depend. Quebec City has celebrated its 400th anniversary in 2008. Inscribed as a UNESCO world heritage site in 1985, Old Quebec is the only city on the continent north of Mexico to have preserved the key components of its defensive fortifications.Today, cruise ships line the St Lawrence River quay.The hotel Château Frontenac (to the left) was built by the Canadian Pacific Railway. The Rue du Petit-Champlain is at the heart of Vieux Québec and the principal magnet for the city’s frenetic tourist industry.
C O N T E X T 1 0 7 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 8 9 Abstract as the theme appeared to be, it is central to today’s reinterpretation of the definitions of ‘heritage’. The conference considered the perception that conservation has a more central role to play in safeguarding and sustaining the continuity of the world’s immensely diverse tangible, intangible and natural heritage than if pigeonholed as a scientific specialism, focused on the preservation of immovable objects. As Francesco Bandarin, director of the UNESCOWorld Heritage Centre, said in one of his several interventions: ‘current measures may preserve the container, but what about the contents?’ Old Quebec City is a case in point. It attracts eight million visitors a year and its population has retracted to 5,000 inhabitants. Vieux Québec is jam-packed with bars and restaurants, souvenir shops, art and sculpture galleries. But where is the bread shop? The spirit of place has transmuted from The Fresque des Québécois traces 400 years of the city’s history. It was conceived and realised by the Cité de la Création, Lyon (see ‘Picking up the threads in Lyon’, Context 106, September 2008). that of a viable community inhabiting a historic quarter into an approximation of Disneyland, a model that is affecting historic cities around the world. The monuments, the supporting vernacular and the streetscapes may be preserved, but at what cost to the human experience and to our understanding of heritage? From the perspective of citizens, spirit of place is not about simplistic image-making through picture postcards and the marketing apparatus of tourism and commerce. It is to do with the complex, multi-faceted relationships between them as individuals, through their community and its everyday functionality to their physical environment. The theme ‘spirit of place’ inspired a multiplicity of parallel debates at this conference about the inextricable links between people and place, including the necessity to strike a balance between the demands of visitors and the needs of residents. The message was clear: hitherto, ICOMOS has prioritised places as physical objects; henceforth, it needs to focus at least as much on the people who inhabit these places. The International Youth Forum gave special force to the spirit of place theme. To these younger ICOMOS members, conservation and sustainability are synonymous. Engaging with local communities on a continuous basis is a prerequisite for successful conservation. It may have been a coincidence, but the elections that were held at the end of this general assembly resulted in a clean sweep of ICOMOS’s top officials: the president, secretarygeneral and treasurer. The theme may have been abstract, but the enthusiasm for spirit of place was unifying and contagious; as was the expectation that it will presage a revitalised ICOMOS, one that is more relevant, if not to ‘managing change’, maybe to ‘managing conservation in a changing world’. From the world stage to our own front door, does spirit of place feature sufficiently in the policies and practice of urban regeneration here in the UK? Would closer attention to defining and interpreting it not greatly assist in the case of cities such as Liverpool, still struggling to establish a distinctive identity for itself following the loss of its historical role as one of the world’s foremost port cities? Finding the spirit of place is just the beginning. Should not safeguarding and transmitting it be a core conservation activity for a sustainable world? The ‘Quebec City Declaration on the Preservation of the Spirit of Place’, adopted at this ICOMOS General Assembly, may be accessed at: http://www. icomos.org/ The 17th ICOMOS General Assembly and Scientific Symposium is due to take place in Iran (Tehran or Esfahan) in autumn 2011. Dennis Rodwell, an architect-planner, is a cultural heritage consultant.
10 C O N T E X T 1 0 7 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 8 Tall storeys: IHBC London branch conference Good manners for a recession The IHBC London branch held the fifth of its annual series of one-day conferences in October under the title ‘Tall storeys: do high buildings complement the historic environment?’ As branch chair David McDonald admitted in his opening remarks, the conference was planned early in the year: when Ken Livingstone was Mayor of London, the boom in the construction of tall buildings was still in full flow, and credit crunch had barely entered the vocabulary. Notwithstanding the election of Boris Johnson as mayor and question marks over the viability of several already approved schemes for the capital, the issues posed by this conference remain relevant nationwide. Jonathan Glancey, author and critic, entertainingly and symbolically opened his keynote address by playing with a set of brightly coloured, infants’ building blocks, demonstrating that constructing towers (as well, of course, as demolishing them) is a timehonoured phenomenon inherited from childhood. In the adult world, emerging cities are seeking to define an instant image for themselves. Glancey admitted to not knowing what recession would mean, except fewer skyscrapers. He challenged us to reflect on the motives behind their construction.Who are they for? What are the alternatives? And what is the most suitable built form for any given location: the primordial horizontality of an oasis in the desert, or the traditional, medium-rise, humanly scaled, environment of central London? Glancey concluded by questioning whether we were building intelligently or simply replaying our childhoods. Susie Barson of English Heritage pointed out that it was only since the 1960s that the wave of ever-larger and taller commercial buildings had overtaken the traditional skyline identifiers of the square mile, such as religious, military and commemorative monuments. Rosemarie MacQueen of Westminster City Council emphasised two conclusions of the joint English Heritage and CABE document Guidance on Tall Buildings (2007), namely that the existence of a tall building in a particular location did not necessarily set a precedent for others, and that they were not the only model for high density. She spoke of Mayor Johnson’s timely reflection, as set out in the vision document Planning for a Better London (2008). This – compared to his predecessor’s love affair with tall buildings – placed greater weight on local context, protection and enhancement of the historic environment, and the protection of views of historic landmarks. Several of the speakers challenged the assumption that tall buildings were synonymous with urban renaissance and commercial success, and essential to the status of the City as a world financial centre. Chris Miele of Montagu Evans attracted some ire when he affirmed that the scale, height and bulk of new projects could not be considered irrespective of design, and that it was ‘only sensible’ that the planning system should overrule all other considerations when persuaded of the architectural quality of a project. No wonder the UNESCOWorld Heritage Committee continues to take a keen interest in what is happening in the surroundings and settings of London’s three world heritage sites:Westminster, the Tower and Greenwich. One questioner asked: ‘Where does the IHBC stand in all this?’We still have many lessons to learn from the 1960s, and any recession has not come a moment too soon. Gordon Cullen, in Townscape (1961), encapsulated good urban design as ‘the agreement to differ within a recognised tolerance of behaviour’. Does the attention-seeking machismo of today’s architects and engineers reflect good manners, let alone common sense? IHBC London will not be holding a one day conference in 2009: instead, it is reserving its energies for the organisation of the 2010 Annual Summer School. Dennis Rodwell The Tower of London seen against a cluster of City towers.
C O N T E X T 1 0 7 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 8 11 Buildings at risk conference Thinking outside the heritage box The conference ‘Creative Partnerships for Buildings at Risk’ was organised by the IHBC NorthWest Branch at Manchester Town Hall in the summer. Conference chairman Michael Hebbert of the University of Manchester introduced the theme of partnership. Creating partnerships was needed as much now as it ever had been, especially if funding was going to be diverted to the London Olympics over the next few years. Andrew Davison of English Heritage focused on the English Heritage Buildings at Risk (BAR) Register initiative. The question was whether we were solving the BAR problem or not. There were 30,544 Grade I and II* listed buildings on the latest English Heritage register. Although some buildings had been removed from the register, others had been added. Only a few buildings on the register had been demolished since 1999. Removing a building from the register meant that the problems had been resolved. Davison made the point that the easiest problems to solve had generally been resolved; although this made sense, it cast a shadow over hopes for the future. Nigel Hewitson, head of planning at Norton Rose, outlined the main legal measures available to local planning authorities. He began with two questions. First, does the owner of a listed building have any general legal duty of care to keep the building in a state of repair? Second, does the owner have any duty to insure the building? Legally speaking, the answer to both questions was no, although a building owner was responsible if a dangerous building injured someone. Hewitson contended that the confusion over what was and what was not a legal duty arose because PPG15 could only be considered as ‘guidance’. Under the (draft) Heritage Protection Bill, changes to the existing procedures were being proposed. The repairs notice and compulsory purchase order provisions in the 1990 act would be repealed and extended to other heritage structures. Urgent works provisions would be replaced by a system enabling the national and local authorities to carry out any works which ‘it appears to them are necessary for the preservation of registered heritage structures’ (other than dwellings) on giving seven days notice. However, local planning authorities will need the consent of English Heritage for such works. Brian Morton, one of the country’s leading conservation engineers, provided the delegates with a series of illustrated case studies. He implored his audience not to despair at being presented with a structural engineer’s report that suggested a listed building needed to be demolished. The first inspection was not the full story, he said. It was simply the first step towards further inspections. There might be bulging walls or walls that were out of plumb, but normally they were still standing. Engineers should take the view that the building could be saved and rebuild it as it was.Where engineer’s reports did offer solutions, Morton’s advice was to query the costs, because often the proposed work was an over-engineered solution. Two presentations on managing buildings at risk were given by the buildings at risk officers for Manchester and Liverpool. Kate Borland explained how English Heritage entered into a partnership with Manchester City Council in 2003 and funded a buildings at risk officer’s post. Around that time some other large scale BAR projects were being supported by building preservation trusts (BPTs): Christ Church, Kensington, Liverpool, following urgent works in 2007 to rebuild a gable and stabilise tower masonry (Photos: Liverpool City Council) North Stack, Stanley Dock, Liverpool, listed Grade II* No 2, Harter Street (Photo: Manchester City Council)
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