48 C O N T E X T 1 0 9 : M A Y 2 0 0 9 Queen Victoria considered that ‘so unique a gem should be preserved’. More recently a book and film have made Rosslyn an icon for increasing numbers of tourists, but Angelo Maggi, an Italian scholar and authority on the chapel, deals with authenticated fact and not Da Vinci fiction. Over five chapters, with excellent illustrations, detailed endnotes and an index, Maggi presents a story of neglect, near ruin and controversial restorations. A 1693 engraving shows the building relatively unscathed after use as a stable by Cromwell’s troops and ransacking for idolatrous adornment. Many early 19th century visitors admired the romantic scene with carvings ‘beautifully tinted with all the variegated blotches an incrusted vegetation can bestow’ and opposed restoration, believing that moss was a complete protection. The opening up of windows blocked in the 18th century was criticised for destroying the dark solemnity of the chapel, while others applauded the ‘securing to after ages these rich remains of Gothic art’. Further restoration in the 1860s provoked a dispute in the national press on how much work was really necessary. According to The Builder, almost all the carving was re-tooled and sharpened. A flavour of the debate is given in a letter to The Scotsman in 1861 describing a stone pillar as left ‘scraped, peeled, flayed, standing raw, naked and ashamed’. The restoration controversies give insight to changing 19th century attitudes. Also fascinating is the varying perception of Rosslyn as a uniquely valuable and evocative structure. Paintings manipulate the landscape with ‘ingredients that are typical of the Sublime and the Picturesque’. Small, out-of-scale figures give the interior increased size and grandeur, and architectural details are added or omitted for effect. The dramatic natural interior lighting produced the legend, either revived or invented by SirWalter Scott (17711832), that the chapel would appear to be in flames the night before a Lord of Rosslyn died. This has been explained as the lowest rays of a red Scottish sunset shining straight through the chapel’s double windows, made possible by the hillside location: ‘the most appropriate… had its builder desired to produce this effect’. The story of Rosslyn Chapel makes an absorbing read. It is also a forceful reminder that artistic representation, architectural understanding and cultural perception are all subject to change, and that at any one time there may be several versions of the architectural image which ‘are not always compatible one with the other’. Helen MThomas, architectural and historic designed landscape research consultant Radical departures Architecture in Existing Fabric: planning, design, building Johannes Cramer and Stefan Breitling, BirkhäuserVerlag AG, Basel and Berlin, 2007, 221 pp, 231 colour and 11 b&w illustrations and 75 line drawings, 240 x 170mm, hardback, ISBN 978 3 7643 7752 6, £29.90 This is a Swiss/German book written in English and intended as a comprehensive introduction for architects altering historic buildings. The content may seem something of a curiosity to a UK conservation professional readership. The content implies that many European architects – for this seems to the intended readership – only infrequently encounter the particular philosophical, procedural and technical issues presented by alteration and reuse of old buildings prevalent in the UK. Such professional practice abroad seems to start from a distinctly different perspective. Consequently, the solutions promoted are memorably imaginative. The book opens with an illustration of Carlo Scarpa’s dramatic 1964 reworking of the Castelvecchio, Verona. Other examples are less familiar and more contemporary. It would not be an exaggeration to say, however, that some Context readers might consider a number of the illustrated interventions shocking in their radical departure from longstanding UK principles. The two authors have identified what they consider as equally valid, successful, continental alternatives and are thoroughly thought provoking. Furthermore the book helps to contradict the conventional wisdom that creative design is the exclusive province of new building. The illustrations might foster more boldness in planners and councillors frequently faced with the safety-first, mediocrity of development proposals. The chapters deal with the stages of design and execution logically and methodically: team roles; the consents stages; preparatory investigation, survey and recording; alternative design strategies; detailed planning; construction and post-completion building management – but not as dryly as that inventory suggests. It is helpful to bring all these elements together in this way but UK practitioners may find some of the procedural aspects of limited interest. Much more stimulating than the processes are 30 short case studies from a wide variety of periods and locations around Europe. Spread throughout the book, these show transformations of what are likely to be largely unfamiliar buildings. The cases are all illustrated, usually in colour, although some of these pictures are too small to be thoroughly informative. The longest chapter – devoted to design strategies – features most of the case studies and is the heart of the book. The issues explored as central to successful transformations are corrective maintenance; modernisation; adaptation; replacement; and (under what the authors term ‘architectonic expression’) correspondence, unification; fragmentation; junction and delineation of new work to old. There is a wideranging and largely unfamiliar bibliography, unfortunately mostly German or Italian titles. While the book itself does not debate whether radical approaches adopted on the continent might have equal validity here, the illustrations and cases provide a valuable stimulus to such considerations at a time when English Heritage’s recent conservation principles are promoting a distinctly Anglo-centric perspective to adaptive reuse and repair. Bob Kindred MBE, head of conservation and urban design at Ipswich Borough Council and specialist heritage advisor to the House of Commons CMS Select Committee
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