54 C O N T E X T 1 3 6 : S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 4 Book reviews Celebrating continuity Painting the Town: Scottish urban history in art E Patricia Dennison, Stuart Eydmann, Annie Lyell, Michael Lynch and Simon Stronach, Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 2013, 512 pages, hardback, ISBN 978 1 908332 0 42, £25 Painting the Town is an immensely rich visual and written record of over four centuries of urban transformation in Scotland, essentially spanning the period before the popularisation of photography in the third quarter of the 19th century. The book features 75 towns and cities across mainland Scotland and its islands. More than 200 images – comprising paintings, engravings, sketches and maps – have been selected, primarily for their informational value over their artistic provenance. These include scenes interpreted by visitors from abroad to complement those recorded by local artists. They encompass views that portray the architecture of towns as physical places, as well as representations of the vibrant street life and communal revelry that underscored their primary historical function as human spaces – before appropriation of the public realm by motorised traffic. Painting the Town covers a period of fundamental change from a primordially rural society to one of the most industrialised and urbanised in Europe, with associated technological and socio-economic revolution. At the same time, the book provides an invaluable record of the retention of individual urban identities across Scotland until the dawn of the modern era. This, through the largely unselfconscious ‘management of continuity’ – the term favoured by Jukka Jokilehto in his presentation at the 2014 IHBC annual school – rather than the ‘management of change’, the mantra advanced by both English Heritage and Historic Scotland. Purposely, by illustrating how change has been successfully accommodated in the past, Painting the Town serves both as a record and as a guide for responsible engagement in the historic environment today, to safeguard the enduring qualities of place and space. The authors’ varied academic and professional backgrounds combine to provide an unsurpassed overview of the commonalities and individual distinctions of Scotland’s rich urban heritage. Stonard is a practising urban archaeologist; Dennison, Lyell and Lynch are authorities in complementary strands of local and urban history; Eydmann, convenor of the Scottish branch of the IHBC, provides the important input and perspective of the conservation planning professional. Commonalities include the linear shape and herringbone pattern of narrow lanes and closes feeding off the main street – the predominant characteristic of urban settlement plans throughout Scotland in the period before 1700. Also, the multiplicity of small towns (compared for example to England) – a continuing feature of Scotland today – which historically hosted a single large parish church that also served a substantial hinterland. Individual distinctions are conditioned naturally, by topography and location: coastal, riverbank and, less frequently and generally later, inland. Especially useful to the researcher is the editorial note which summarises the rich archival sources that are now available online. Painting the Town is a valuable addition to the literature of urban studies. To this reviewer it is additionally valuable at this time of major concern – in England equally with Scotland – focused on the plight of our wealth of historic towns: not just for their architectural heritage as physical objects, but for the viable multi-functionality that justifies and supports the survival of that heritage. Following a period of many decades when perceptions in the field of landuse planning have conditioned the view that the primary, if not sole, future for towns is as repositories and promoters of shopping, a book that so visually displays the traditional vitality of our historic towns as centres of unproscribed communal activity is to be applauded. Painting the Town is an authoritative reminder that the enduring qualities of our historic towns are multi-faceted, and that their successful conservation is a multi-disciplinary task to which a comprehensive understanding of urban history makes a substantial contribution. Dennis Rodwell, architect-planner, consultant in cultural heritage and sustainable urban development In expansionist mode Building the Modern Church: Roman Catholic architecture in Britain, 1955 to 1975 Robert Proctor, Ashgate Publishing, 2014, 371 pages, 189 black and white and 16 colour illustrations, 22 plans, ISBN 978 1 409449 15 7 (hardback), £60 (£54 website price) The post-war period is generally regarded as one of steady decline in formal religious observance.While this may be true of recent decades, the 1950s and 1960s saw church building on an unprecedented scale, and nowhere more so than in the Roman Catholic church. The church entered the postwar world in confident, expansionist mode; the number of priests peaked in 1970, and churches were built to serve almost every new housing estate and settlement, as well as rural areas, where the church was not traditionally strong. In the cities, the results of bomb damage were made good. The architectural legacy of all this, as for post-war building generally, is mixed. Robert Proctor’s magisterial review covers the 10 years on either side of the end of the Second Vatican Council (1962–5), when the Roman Catholic church reappraised its relationship with other faiths, denominations and the modern world in general. The most visible outward result of the reforms of the council was the almost total replacement of the Latin mass, in universal use since the Council of Trent, with modern
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