50 C O N T E X T 1 3 6 : S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 4 Director’s cut Conservation threads or tapestry: creativity, aesthetics and diversity Some fundamentals in the aesthetics of conservation came to the fore in our 2014 annual school as part of its interrogation of the wide-ranging and challenging theme ‘The Art of Conservation’. However the programme necessarily entailed more of a delving into conservation aesthetics than any structural analysis or operational evaluation. Given that, it may be worth considering these matters briefly here, not only for the resonances with our school, but because they have such a huge bearing on the practices of our members as well as the forward plans of their institute. As a professional body we aspire to offer services and a relevant regulatory infrastructure to conservation practitioners across both public and private sectors, as well as across diverse fields of practice. That aspiration presumes that there is a consistency and coherence of conservation interests to all of these areas, or at very least that any differences may be accommodated in our work. But does the diversity in conservation advice reflect genuine irreconcilable differences across practitioners from different areas? Or is it possibly more a matter of a lack of crossover, with the real problem being a historic compartmentalising of disciplines, one that conservation is evolving to address? However much many would like to pin down conservation to a transparent methodology of practice ‘standards’, we can expect some variations in advice, as any discipline would. Of course diversity in practice is only to be expected in a discipline that is still in its infancy, especially when measured against such established disciplines as engineering, archaeology or architecture.Yet, given that, as conservation specialists, we seek to shape those historic disciplines to help deliver the kind of conservation outcomes we want, it is critical that we understand the nature of that diversity in practice, not least to accommodate it within our operations. If that diversity of advice exists because conservation practice in each established discipline can never be any more than a smaller strand in that discipline, and lacks functioning synergies with conservation practice in any other disciplines, there may be problems for our future. Perhaps our operating model might better focus on supporting those threads, and set aside the idea of a conservation discipline and all the complex actions it entails, from regulatory functions to standards.We may have the areas of competence to determine commonality across learning, but that is only a construct of a test for entry, not a foundation for operational regulation and standards. An answer may begin with a search for a common philosophy, as that would help unify the diverse areas of practice.With conservation outcomes serving as such a critical element in our standards – after all, those outcomes form the basis for disciplinary actions – any common philosophy would first require underpinning by a recognisably coherent conservation aesthetic. So a coherent conservation aesthetic – a recognisable ‘art’ of conservation – could serve as the critical signpost for a productive future for the IHBC as it bridges between disciplines, not as polyfilla for their gaps. Can we identify such an aesthetic? For this brief review we can start with the premise that a coherent conservation ‘aesthetic’ demands a creative act – a conservation action – that is based in part at least on aesthetic judgement, and that when that creative act is successful, it can generate an aesthetic experience. That process would indicate that there is a coherent conservation philosophy and, by extension, put into our reach a common conservation practice and standard. The first challenge we face is that what we do in conservation could be seen to reflect a process that is antithetical to traditional artistic activity. Conservation is not about a creative act in the traditional sense because, at a very basic level, it involves a re-creation. As such it rejuvenates a thing that is already there, rather than makes a thing anew. The vastness separating those two archetypical activities is represented perfectly by the different ethos in their associated terms: of creation as ‘making’, and of recreation as ‘playing’. Conservation is by no means recreation – as practitioners know – even if their line-managers sometimes doubt it. But is it actually creative, and can it generate an aesthetic experience? There are two main areas where aesthetic judgements and experience play a substantial part in the creative process of conservation: the extent of intervention, and the expression of that intervention. Each of these areas ties the most fundamental of conservation outcomes to its overarching aesthetic. In assessing the extent of intervention, there are many pragmatic issues to be considered. Intervention, or change in our heritage resources, is not solely a matter of an intangible or personal taste. It considers practical matters that range from policy, legality and cost, to principles, skills and materials. Is that so far from the parameters that circumscribe creativity in any creative act such as, most obviously, in the built environment and architecture? And is the expression of that ‘change’ (the re-creation) in what is conserved sufficiently creative to be capable of generating aesthetic experience? For those lucky enough to have visited Lowther Castle at the IHBC’s 2013 Carlisle school, under the thoughtful guidance of Alan Gardner, the interventions devised there to secure the fabric seemed to manifest the best qualities of effective conservation. This was a substantial consolidation, discreetly devised and executed, and imaginatively thought through in a way that allowed the ruin to speak to the viewer on its own aesthetic terms. But there is also no doubt that those introduced to Gardner’s work on the day experienced a true aesthetic appreciation of his conservation art. In the case of Mike Galloway’s work at Dundee and its waterfront, as he explained to the 2014 Edinburgh School, the scale of intervention is necessarily much more substantial than Gardner’s. But the same qualities in conservation are being sought as
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