6 NEWS LETTERS TOTHEEDITOR MOVINGBUILDINGS Dear Sir: David Morton's discussion of the case for moving buildings ('Sir Titus', Context 56, pp. 4445) was carefully considered, but his conclusions are dangerous. Dismantling and reconstruction is almost always the process by which relocation occurs in this country. Vety few historic structures survive this successfully. With a typical listed building - the product of repair, alteration and patination - only the bare bones of the structure are likely to remain after the move. If there is no hope for a building on its historic site, it is perhaps better to accept the loss that to create a sham of the original through relocation and pretend it has been saved. Often decisions to move buildings seem to result from an evaluation of their situation which is too short sighted. Locations which appear utterly hostile to a listed building in the present can change fundamentally and with surprising speed. In one case, the SPAB followed for many years , a good manor house surviving the seemingly insurmountable threat of becoming a new railway station; it remained in this state for many years until the Beeching closures removed the line and allowed a use close to the original. If the timber framed building in a chemical plant, mentioned by David Morton, is the one the Society knows, we understand that the listed structure is not at any risk from decay, and that the plant's closure has been a possibility for some years: so it's surely best left alone. All connected with IHBC should look to the long term in the care of historic buildings. Although there may be occasional exceptions, for most structures, temporary holding repairs are a better option than the 'last resort' of relocation. Matthew Slocombe Deputy Secretary, SPAB REFOCUSING OUR OBJECTIVES Dear Sir: I would just like to state how delighted I am to be accepted as a member of the Institute. I am probably one of the few people who can claim they have been a Conservation Officer for almost 30 years and have enjoyed some involvement in many important changes. I clearly remember that real climate of excitement, in the late 1960s when the subject was really topical and just everything seem possible. A new Institute provides opportunities for new initiatives and ought to provoke reasoned reassessments. It is my opinion that the last few years has seen a noticeable moving away from the original objectives. In that early period, our principal concerns were with the qualitative improvement of important, historic environments. This clearly required a deep involvement with the general planning process and its careful manipulation to achieve our purposes. Writ large was the problem of new building design, which tended to dominate our thoughts. Alongside this were all those 'highway' matters that had caused so much destruction and needed to be confronted. We were painfully aware of the possible pitfalls, such as 'gentrification' and the social problems that could arise from dual standards of control. Carefully controlled change seemed to offer the best way ahead and was the underlying theme of much of the literature of the times. We even believed that success in Conservation Areas could provide a useful template for advances in other areas as all the environmental benefits were seen. However, all that has changed. We now seem to live in a world where conservation comes dangerously close to preservation and where 'separating out' rather than 'including in' seems the order of the day. 'Heritage areas', with a mono-culture of gift shops and not much else, are increasingly prevalent. A whole indust,y has arisen to provide fake history with fake authenticity with a deadly uniformity of irrelevance. Surely Conservation Areas should be 'ordinary' areas, where ordinary people live and work, but which enjoy an extraordinary degree of care? It is my pet theory that placing things in real, or 'metaphorical' glass cases; is the opposite of conservation and the real threat to our intentions. Old and new should join together, so the gaps don't show and so that continuity is stressed. My other concern is with the degree to which 'mending old buildings' now dominates the agenda. A brief perusal of any issue of Context will reveal the truth of this. Where is the interest in new building design or the myriad of other aspects of our task? What I see is a dangerous and unwelcome narrowing of our objectives, where the size of a glazing bead becomes the focus of our attention. The narrower, or more blinkered the objectives, the narrower the core of skills, and the circle becomes self-perpetuating. Down with PRESERVATION and up with CONSERVATION! The next person using the word 'heritage' shall wash their mouth out with soap and water (old Essex saying). Dave Stenning Essex. REMEMBER:The Editor can now be reached on e-mail: ihbc_editor@mkcn.org. uk Context57 March 1998
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