INSTITUTENEWS/BOOKREVIEWS year. Many banks are paying to the wrong bank and, more seriously, at least 50 members' banks are paying what they paid last year and the new subscription. The banks have also broken their record by paying nine members' annual subscriptions monthly! Hopefully, the new forms of banker's order should sort some of the mess out. Don't expect too much, however! Please check your bank accounts and let me know if you think your bank is paying double subscriptions or doing anything else wrong. I will obviously get round to paying people back but this will not happen (unless you remind me) before I have finished dealing with my main task of transferring the membership over to the new Institute. If you normally pay by cheque and you haven't paid me yet, this year's subscripBOOKREVIEWS MUNICIPAL CONSTRUCTIONS To/booths & Town-Houses - Civic Architecture in Scotland to 1833. RCAHMS. 1996. A4 Softback. 242pp. Fully illus. in b+w. ISBN O 11 495799 1. £43.50. This book marks a new departure for the RCAHMS. It is the first thematic volume resulting from a change of approach to its architectural surveys. For over 80 years the Royal Commission carried out its topographical Invento1y surveys on a county-by-county basis. This identified and recorded both architectural and archaeological sites with the intention of completing an assessment of the entire Scottish heritage. When it was realised, less than ten years ago, that this would have taken far too long; could never be definitive and that countless monuments and buildings would have disappeared in the interim; the Royal Commission moved toward distillinginfonnation available in the national archive to heightening public awareness of pa1ticular types of buildings as well as highlighting the quality of infonnation available in the National Monument Record for Scotland. To/booths & Town-Houses is the first fruit of that revised approach based on survey work mainly undertaken between 1991 and 1995. Happily, this subject is particularly representative of Scottish architecture and society assessing those buildings designed, or adapted, to serve as centres of local burgh administration, justice and ceremonial prior to the Municipal Reform Act of 1833. This legislation was a watershed in the history of local government in Scot52 land as it defined the beginnings of democratically elected councils and the emergence of modern town-halls. Tolbooths and town-houses continued in use, however, and not until 1975 did the centuries-old traditions of burgh and county government in Scotland finally end - followed by further local government reorganisation in 1996. The main part of the book is in the form a gazetteer, but there are two excellent introductory sections to place the individual buildings in their historical and architectural context. While tolbooths are known to have existed in medieval times, over one-third were rebuilt in the first third of the 19th century - up to the 1833 Act. Subsequently there was stricter financial control and little new building or major alteration until the town halls built in the latter part of the 19th centwy were intended to serve the local population for the meetings and concerts of a more civic society. The buildings were expressions of civic pride but equally served to dispense justice and hold felons - unlike England where these latter functions became separated. Prisoners were held for religious and political reasons as well as for crimes but those of higher social standing could be incarcerated in "Gentleman's" cells. The architectural introduction makes a comparison with Scandinavia and the smaller towns in The Netherlands - where Scotland had closest trading links - and remarks that scale and the use of steeples was also similar. The townscape contribution of the buildings is also identified as they often formed part of 18th or early 19th century planned new towns or followed local municitions are virtually the same as last year (only the Overseas subscription rate has increased). Full and Associate Members pay £20, Corporate Members pay £75, Concessionary Members pay £10 and Overseas (non UK) Members pay £35. Send your cheques (payable to "Institute of Historic Building Conservation") to my address (see page 3). Please do not pay by bank giro direct into your bank. If you do, I will have no pal improvements to clear away narrow wynds. Good short summaries are also given about adaptation and reuse; building materials; architects and craftsmen; forestairs - a familiar feature of Scottish urban domestic architecture; armorials and inscriptions, bells and clocks. The descriptive gazetteer then gives 87 entries in alphabetical order with excellent photographs of existing buildings and in some cases perspective conjectural reconstructions of earlier stages. Many of the Royal Commission's excellent survey elevations and plans are reproduced - almost all at 1:200 scale. Most entries get at least two pages, although Aberdeen gets eight and Montrose and Ayr both get five. Edinburgh, Leith and Cannongate are treated separately. An appendix provides brief summary notes of another 106 demolished or much-altered buildings of which there is some surviving record. Jf there are criticisms of the book, they are first that little of the constructional interest is explained, especially the pencil thin steeples such as at Haddington or Falkirk; or the cantilever stairs at Banff; and bell-frames attract much less interest than the bells; and secondly, that although beautifully designed and produced, as a paperback it is rather expensive. A stitched binding might have increased robustness for frequent consultation. Nevertheless, the RCAHMSshould be congratulated on highlighting the architectural and historical importance of tolbooths and town-houses to towns and cities all over Scotland. The next survey - on historic burgh schools is - eagerly awaited. HHMuir record of your payment and you will receive chasing letters from me. I know that it is difficult to remember to pay subscriptions so I would remind you again that paying by banker's order can be of great benefit (as long as the bank does as it is told). New forms of banker's order can be obtained from me (address on page 3). Gus Astley, Membership Secretary ENSURING OOD ARCHITECTURE Architecture in Conservation - Managing Development at Historic Sites. James Strike. Routledge, London and New York, 1994. 162 pp. 60 b+w photos & illus. ISBN O 41 08130 o. £40.00. At a time when much new building work is beginning at historic sites, courtesy of the Heritage Lottery Fund, this book presents an ordered analysis of how good architecture can be generated from a conservation context. With the help of clear illustrations, photographs and line drawings, James Strike assembles many telling international examples of new development at historic sites to show that, if the value of the built heritage is not to be diluted or compromised, the architecture we place alongside it must be derived from a careful interpretation of the meaning of the site in modern architectural language. He concentrates mainly on examples of good practice and thus does not overstate the complementary argument that to copy the visual appearance of a historic building as a design solution is to court nostalgia, parody or deceit. James Strike's aim, in fact, is to avoid the emotive and polarised standpoint that can result from a dogmatic historicist versus modernist debate. He achieves this with considerable success by examining a series of conceptual ways of resolving the problems that arise when we construct new architecture next to historic buildings. The system of controlling building work at historic sites in Britain is administratively Context 56 December 1997
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