C O N T E X T 1 3 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 3 51 are used inefficiently, and that there is the risk of making an alteration to install something only to find that the technology has advanced and would have permitted a more minimal intervention. A clear message is that there is little point in generating energy until the energy use of the building and its occupants has been reduced through measures to improve such things as air-tightness. The book is beautifully illustrated, not just with good-quality colour photographs and captions, but also with coloured drawings to explain issues such as the various means of improving roof insulation. There is an informative chart to help an owner choose the right insulation product for each area of the house. The photograph of the Morris Minor outside a Georgian house makes an often-forgotten point that old houses need the care and attention that we would automatically, without question, give to classic cars or antique furniture. The book is very much a handbook, as its title says. It has an index, though a glossary would be useful for quickreference explanation of certain terms (such as hemp ‘shiv’). The book begins by explaining that old houses can be green – an important message as it is frustrating just how many people still believe that historic buildings can not be made energy efficient. It considers the building envelope before providing separate chapters for roofs and ceilings; windows and doors; walls; and floors. This is followed by a chapter on paints. At first glance this might seem surprisingly long, but it rewards the reader with a wealth of advice about paints that both respect historic character and avoid being harmful to either the building or its occupants, or environmentally damaging to manufacture. Throughout, the book reminds us that the most costly measures are not necessarily the ones that will make the biggest impact. Given that the emphasis is clearly on being environmentally responsible, it is perhaps surprising that the section on payback does not specifically encourage owners to value reducing consumption simply for its green benefit and not just in terms of whether the financial investment will be recouped in reduced energy bills. The book rightly comments that payback can in some cases take many years and that this could be potentially longer than the life-expectancy of the particular product or installation. Indeed, we are told what no double-glazed salesman will want to hear, that it can take 97.6 years to pay back the cost of such replacement windows. Conservation officers will be glad to know that at the very beginning is a clear note about the need to check what works require consent, and reminding readers to follow the approved drawings and correctly discharge any conditions attached. They will, on the other hand, be alarmed to see the photograph on page 17 of a Grade I listed pargetted and jettied house for which the reader is told the Energy Performance Certificate recommended external wall insulation, the consequences of which would be too ghastly to contemplate. Edward Holland, senior projects adviser, the Prince’s Regeneration Trust Changing partners The Conservation Movement: a history of architectural preservation, antiquity to modernity Miles Glendinning, Routledge, 2013, 544pp, paperback, ISBN 978 0 41554 322 4, £39.99 Men from the Ministry: how Britain saved its heritage Simon Thurley,Yale, 2013, 304pp, hardback, ISBN 978 0 30019 572 9, £18.99 Following on the heels of seminal in-depth histories of architectural conservation by Jukka Jokilehto (1999) and John H Stubbs (2009 and 2011), it might be thought that the subject has little new to tell us.With his familiar verve, Miles Glendinning, professor of architectural conservation at the University of Edinburgh, successfully confounds this preconception with a combination of challenging insight and analysis that places evolving battles for the ethical high ground in conservation in the context of unfolding patterns of world events: revolutions, wars, and political and socio-economic transformations. Conservation is represented as a child of Enlightenment progress, in which ‘movement’ subsumes a wider meaning. The Conservation Movement is structured according to key periods in European history: pre-1789, 1789–1914, 1914–45, 1945–89, and post-1989. Whereas much of the content for the earlier periods recounts familiar material, Glendinning’s significant contribution opens with nationalist conservation rivalries in the 1890s, and ends with today’s contested internationalisation of both heritage and its conservation. Whether in Europe, North America, Asia or Australia, what are the forces that have shaped the changing role and attitudes to both architectural and urban conservation? How have the ascendancy and decline of empires, dictatorships, socialism, social democracy and global capitalism impacted on philosophy and practice?What effect did the 20th century’s two world wars, with their deliberate cultural destruction, have in legitimising the facsimile reproduction of lost monuments, even of ones destroyed previously in peacetime? What are the challenges posed to traditional western approaches to material authenticity by the rise of the heritage industry and global tourism, and to what extent are they also undermined by non-western philosophies that place less emphasis on original fabric and engage with intangible cultural heritage?What compromises have been reached between the polarised interests of the tabula rasa modern movement and preservation militants? And how does today’s derogatorily applied term pastiche fit into a canvas that abounds with new buildings of all eras constructed in historical styles? These are just some of the many questions to which Glendenning seeks answers in a text that defies the notion that the conservation movement has followed a single linear progression. Rather, he portrays it as a complex and multi-layered activity, replete with changing attitudes, responses and perceptions, all of which are themselves in state of constant agitation. In what he describes as the heyday of the conservation movement, 1945–89, much of the material will be familiar to IHBC members, at least of my generation: the furore that followed the publication of The Sack of Bath (1973)
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