6 C O N T E X T 1 3 3 : M A R C H 2 0 1 4 Systematic documentation and evaluation of cast-iron structural elements are critical to a building’s successful repair. Edmund Meade illuminates the importance of this and the lessons learned, including the need for close collaboration of all the stakeholders. Robert Bates examines how the removal, refurbishment and reinstallation of architectural cast iron extended its life at the former home and studio in SoHo, NewYork, of Donald Judd, the ‘minimalist’ artist (who stridently disavowed that description). Finally, Doug McLean draws on decades of experience to illustrate the perennial question of replacement versus repair of cast iron, pointing to careless or ill-advised cast-iron repairs in Galveston, Texas, exacerbated by the harsh coastal climate. Print versions of the Journal of Architectural Conservation continue to be somewhat delayed by the publication moving from Donhead to Routledge. The most recently available issue (Vol 19, No 2, July 2013) contains some interesting papers offering significant insights into policy and practice in both the UK and abroad. The paper with perhaps the greatest domestic interest is one by Roger Turner, who describes the conservation of the extraordinary serpentine Grade I-listed Shell Grotto in Margate, Kent. This subterranean structure clearly predates its first recorded existence in 1835. The author explains the origins of grottos as a type stretching back to antiquity, with particular reference to Renaissance Italy and the appeal to English taste from the 17th century onward. By 1999 the fragile structure had fallen into disrepair, caused by poor environmental conditions underground. At that stage it was added to the English Heritage Buildings at Risk Register. Turner explains how the programme of investigation, and reinforcement of the chalk bedrock and removal of an overlying back garden concrete slab was achieved with support from Kent County Council and English Heritage; and how this rescue was followed by the installation of land drainage, and internal conservation or replacement of the shell panels. Completion of the work in 2012 permitted removal of the grotto from the at-risk register. The other particularly interesting paper in the July issue of the Journal of Architectural Conservation is an account by Liesbeth Dekeyser, Ann Verdonk and Hilde De Clercq about Cimorné, a cement render with opalescent glass granules developed in Belgium as an innovative decorative façade finish in the 1930s. The unique surface texture was developed and patented by plasterer Pierre Pétroons but unfortunately the technique of application was communicated mainly by word of mouth between the originator and other plasterers, with hardly any surviving written or illustrative documentation. Additionally the marbrite glass – which resembles opalescent glasses like Vitrolite and Carrara glass – is no longer manufactured. Needless to say this has made the approach to restoration something of a challenge. Nevertheless, the authors have pieced together the evidence (illustrated some of the on-site samples in colour) and determined the original methods of application. The next step will be to try to master the techniques used as part of the process of testing suitable alternative materials, and training craftsmen to apply them. Fascinating stuff. It is to be hoped that more will be published about this in future. While on the subject of craftsmanship, a third, long and very well illustrated paper by Farzin Izadpanah looks at ‘Conservation without conservators’, and the techniques used by traditional semi-nomadic communities in rural Iran to conserve vernacular structures, with no awareness of existing conservation theories and no training in construction skills. The final paper, by Shaher Rababeh, Husan Al Qablan and Mohammad El-Mashaleh, sets out the computerised structural modeling analysis undertaken to test the effectiveness of bonding timbers in arches of first century BC Nabataean architecture (in what is modernday Jordan). The aim is to provide a basis for considering the stability and therefore the conservation of historic buildings in seismic regions. Particular attention in the latest issue of The Historic Environment: policy and practice (Vol 4, No 2, November 2013) is drawn to Malcolm Cooper’s paper on Gerard Baldwin Brown. Baldwin Brown was the author of a book that nearly everyone appears to has heard of but hardly anyone claims to have read: The Care of Ancient Monuments, published in 1905. Cooper’s perceptive paper looks at Baldwin Brown’s preservation campaigns in Edinburgh at the end of the 19th century as a precursor of his influential book. (A further examination by Cooper of Baldwin Brown’s legacy is shortly to appear in the forthcoming Transactions of the Ancient Monuments Society).The paper is a significant step in the rehabilitation of Baldwin Brown’s reputation, eclipsed by a century of unjust neglect. (In reading the 1905 book, your reviewer has recently discovered much prescient material on British and continental heritage management). One issue that exercises heritage policy makers in Europe is the appropriateness and authenticity of reconstructing in a historicist style when historic buildings have been lost, especially in an urban context and following armed conflict, and the need for better guidance and greater clarity about the most suitable response. InThe Historic Environment John Bold and Robert Pickard synthesise experience from within the Council of Europe, following the wars in the former Yugoslavia.They conclude that facsimile reproduction will take place whether the international heritage community approves of it or not. The paper is instructive in noting how the debate has moved on from post-second-world-war concepts and how current national heritage values are defined within the context of the definitions found in international charters and regional political aspirations. Suggested guidelines are put forward that the authors feel should be in place to manage reconstruction within an internationally recognised framework. These form an interesting subtext to the philosophy of approach and associational value of replacing heritage buildings after catastrophic loss not often encountered in the UK. Related to this, associational value, the multiple layering of history and its interpretation are addressed in a paper by Archonida Polyzoudi using a Byzantine Tower on the Chalkidiki peninsula, Northern Greece.
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