46 C O N T E X T 1 1 3 : M A R C H 2 0 1 0 Vox pop Iain McCaig, guest commissioning editor of this issue’s theme on fire, is a senior architectural conservator at English Heritage. Who has been your greatest inspiration? Probably my grandfather, TomYorke. He was a stonemason who, from the 1930s, worked chiefly on the restoration of the Palace of Westminster. Somewhere in the Victoria Tower my birth is commemorated by an inscription carved on top of an indented ashlar. In my grandparents’ back garden gargoyles and heraldic beasts lurked among the chrysanthemums and Michaelmas daisies. As a child I watched him effortlessly set free geometrical, plant and animal forms from blocks of stone and wondered why, when his tools were in my hands, they would not do the same for me. He also inspired in me a love of drawing. What has been your best idea? Asking my wife, Elizabeth, to marry me. Corny but true. But I also like to think that the idea of applying cathodic protection technology to inhibit corrosion of iron cramps buried in stonework was mine originally. What would you like to have been if you had not become a conservationist? A stonemason or carver, or timber framer. Maybe a potter. How do you reply when at a party someone asks what you do? It depends who’s asking... What is the biggest frustration in your job? I’m only six weeks into a new job so it’s too early to say. However, a frustration throughout my career has been the lack of time and opportunity to revisit sites where I have specified or recommended conservation treatments, five, 10, 20 or 30 years down the line to see how they have performed. What would you like to be doing in five years time? Same as now... only better. What is your favourite building? I have difficulties with ‘favourites’ – my feelings about things are subject to moods and they change over time as my cultural perspective shifts. Some things go in then out of favour. Then in again. I am hard pressed to nominate an individual building – there are so many I like and, indeed, love. However, a building type that gives me consistent pleasure is the Cistercian abbey – a complex of visually differentiated buildings connected by arcades, paths, walls and gardens. Clear, coherent, harmonious and conveying a strong sense of community. For similar reasons – and for the playful and colourful conversation between new and old – I also enjoy Enric Miralles’s Santa Catarina Market in Barcelona. Your favourite place? NewYork City, my wife’s home town. I’ve got it under my skin. Your favourite book? I am a very slow reader – one of the reasons I studied architecture was because the books had pictures in them. Non fiction: Gordon Cullen’s Townscape made me look at buildings and places differently as a student. Later, A Pattern Language: towns, buildings, construction by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein was very influential. Fiction: Brief Intervals of Horrible Sanity by Elizabeth Gold. Beaulieu Abbey: a sense of community What do you do in your spare time? Axe throwing (this was an interest I acquired while working with a timber framer). I also throw pots. Mostly on a wheel but sometimes at the wall. What organisations are you a member of? The IHBC, of course, the Association of Environment Conscious Building, and the Carpenter’s Fellowship. And I’m going to revive my membership of ASCHB which I carelessly allowed to lapse. Which one issue would you particularly like the IHBC to campaign on? Climate change, and measures proposed to reduce carbon emissions, are major threats to the historic environment. Currently, this is the big issue (along with PPS 15) and IHBC is, of course, already campaigning. But we have to go on promoting a proportionate response to these threats based on the contribution the historic environment makes to UK carbon emissions (which is very small) and the actual energy performance of historic buildings (which is certainly better than the SAP [Standard Assessment Procedure] calculations would suggest). It has to be said that we do not love the historic environment primarily for its thermal performance. It makes other contributions to society. We should not be trying to enter a cat in a dog show (my thanks to JohnYates for that bon mot).
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