C O N T E X T 1 4 4 : M A Y 2 0 1 6 39 IHBC membership The uses of philosophy: reflections of a membership secretary The IHBC’s first ‘competence’ is the ‘professional’ one, split into ‘philosophy’ and ‘practice’. Being ‘capable’ in this is a prerequisite for membership of the institute, on the basis that if you do not know why you are doing conservation (the essence of the philosophy question), you can not really do your job properly. In nearly five years as the membership secretary, I have come to learn and appreciate how important philosophy is both to the individual and to the profession in a way that is perhaps unique among our fellow environmental professions.While it may not be possible to demonstrate a precise correspondence between an understanding of conservation philosophy and good conservation outcomes, I have no doubt that those who best understand and appreciate the philosophical underpinning of conservation are those who are best placed to work through the dilemmas and choices which we all face in our professional life. So what makes the philosophy aspect of conservation unique? For example, in architecture, there is plenty on the theory of architecture, but little on any overarching philosophy that discusses why we do architecture and what is its end purpose. This may be because architecture has to happen: buildings need to be built and it could be seen as slightly arcane to discuss what would happen if they were not. But the gap remains. The same is true of town planning: there may be general agreement about why it is done but there is nothing that could be called a philosophy of town planning – any more than there is, say, for landscape architecture. It may be that conservation is lucky: it is a relatively small part of a much larger field (the natural and built environment), and the activity is not automatically a given.We do not have to conserve buildings or areas, so why do we? The wider answer to this is rarely asked or answered, but presumably it has something to do with our need to understand our past and to feel some commitment and links to it, in addition to any aesthetic views about historic buildings and areas. The slightly narrower matter is, however, the one dealt with here: the philosophy of conservation – why we do it and the principles that govern our actions. I could provide an answer of sorts to these questions but in the five years I have been the chair of the membership committee, I have learnt much from what candidates have said, so I draw heavily on their comments and thank them for their comments and insight. The central debate about the conservation of buildings is always how to go about restoration. I am aware that ‘restoration’ is a loaded word that has been in bad odour with conservationists for some time. But unfortunately there is no better single word to use.You will have to accept it to mean ‘repair/ conserve/preserve/maintain/improve’ or whatever other activity may be appropriate. In the 18th century this debate often centred on what to do with damaged classical statutes: how much of a statue to ‘restore’ without it being a ‘perfect imposture’ which would deceive the ‘less experienced eye’ (Cavaceppi 1768, quoted by Jokilehto1). This debate transmogrified into the central debate of the 19th century: what to do with our magnificent gothic cathedrals and churches? The difference compared to statuary is of course that on the whole bits are not missing: the building will be complete, although it is almost inevitable that a range of changes will have been made, some in sympathy with the original style, some not. So, how to proceed assuming the building needs some restoration work? The defenders of the ‘original concept’ were people like (in France) Viollet le Duc, who often wanted to perfect an original concept that had never in fact existed. In England his contemporary and a man of a similar mind was George Gilbert Scott – but generally Scott wanted restoration to be on the basis of known information about a previous (and presumably more authentic or beautiful) state. This approach was never wholly accepted in Britain or Europe. But the focus for opposition to it became very English, in the form of the elegant and powerful prose of, among others, Ruskin and Morris. I sometimes think that the strength of the conservation movement has leant almost too heavily on the magnificence of the lines written by Ruskin and Morris. The big bang of the conservation movement came with Morris’s letter about Scott’s restoration of Tewkesbury abbey and the subsequent SPAB manifesto. It is this rootstock that has supported all the subsequent growth of conservation philosophy, from the Venice and Burra charters, to the ICOMOS guidelines and Historic England’s Conservation Principles. Perhaps this is what makes it a philosophy and not a theory: there is almost universal adoption of the tenets developed in these charters and reports, so a theory of how to go about conservation has become an established philosophy. This acceptance is not of course the end of the story. None of these charters, manifestos or reports can be taken at face value without thinking about what they mean and where, in the particular circumstances of a case, they may, simply, be wrong. Despite the brilliance of the prose, Morris got a bit carried away with his comment that if a building ‘has become inconvenient for its present use, [it is better] to raise another building rather than alter or enlarge the old one’2 – a rubric he abandoned in practice in his lifetime and which is certainly not a tenet that anybody would hold these days. And of course the charters themselves have changed over the years. The Venice charter (1964) is unashamedly modernist and wants Philosophy in action inWinchester
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