Heritage conservation in North America Institute of Historic Building Conservation No 92 November 2005
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C O N T E X T 9 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 5 1 Context Cover: This issue of Context presents six perspectives on conservation in North America (see p11). Who we are and where we came from Editorial Daniel Bluestone makes a similar point in reporting on his work of involving residents in conserving Chicago’s bungalows (p11). ‘We found that, as people come to know their homes and neighbourhoods better in both historical and architectural terms,’ he writes, ‘they tend to form greater attachments to place, while better understanding the complexity of public and private decisions that shape urban landscapes.’ Such an understanding can help us cope with a world that is rapidly changing, either following assaults of nature, as on the Gulf Coast, or through all the other mutations characteristic of the modern world. In the words of Joseph Amato (whom Bluestone quotes), understanding local history ‘serves the intelligence that frees the energy of local people to work in the dimensions of the possible’. Focusing on another continent (as Context did also in our issue with an Australian theme in November 2004) sheds new light on familiar questions of how we relate the present and the past, and how we identify ‘dimensions of the possible’ closer to home. The devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina brought the Gulf Coast face to face with tricky questions of heritage conservation. At the most extreme, some people were asking if New Orleans should be abandoned, and how the cost of rebuilding on an exposed site, much of it below sea level, could be measured against the value of the place. What are the relative values of a city’s historic buildings, of its culture, and of its personal value to the people for whom it is – or was – home? What is lost when a city is abandoned and gradually reinhabited, probably by only a proportion of the original inhabitants? What can we learn from the buildings that have survived a natural disaster? Seeing survivors of Katrina searching for valued belongings reminded Kenneth Pool of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History (quoted in Out of Context, p3) that historic buildings are an important part of our collective memory. ‘Buildings are like a family photograph album, and it is important to save every bit, every snapshot we can. They also define who we are and where we came from.’ Briefing 2 Out of Context 3 Periodically 4 Digital data John Preston 6 Legal Briefing Charles Mynors 8 The politics of preserving place Daniel Bluestone 11 Cultural landscapes of the USA’s national parks Manish Chalana 16 Preserving on paper Gigi Price 21 Historic preservation and local government James Reap 25 True to national values Antoinette Lee 29 Saving Ontario’s railway stations Margo Teasdale 32 Vox pop 36 Membership notes 36 Nigel Barker, six successful years as Context chair 36 Notes from the chair 37 Book reviews 38 Products and services 41 THE INSTITUTE OF HISTORIC BUILDING CONSERVATION www.ihbc.org.uk Registered as a Charity Number 1061593. Company Limited by Guarantee. Registered in England Number 3333780. Registered Office: 3 Stafford Road,TunbridgeWells, Kent TN2 4QZ. IHBC Officers President: David Lovie email president@ihbc.org.uk Chairman: JohnYates email chair@ihbc.org.uk Vice Chair: Dave Chetwyn email vcpolicy@ihbc.org.uk Secretary: Richard Morrice email secretary@ihbc.org.uk Treasurer: Michael Knights email treasurer@ihbc.org.uk Finance & Ethics Chair: Richard Morrice email resources@ihbc.org.uk Communications & Outreach Chair: Fiona Newton email communications@ihbc.org.uk Membership Secretary: Mike Lea email membership@ihbc.org.uk Consultations Secretary: Karen Holyoake email consultations@ihbc.org.uk Education Secretary: John Preston email education@ihbc.org.uk Publicity Secretary: Sarah Buckingham email publicity@ihbc.org.uk Law & Practice Coordinator: Vacant email law@ihbc.org.uk Director: Seán O’Reilly email director@ihbc.org.uk Branch Officers North: John Pendlebury Tel 0191 284 2119 NorthWest: Anthony Blacklay Tel 01270 610050 Yorkshire: Keith Knight Tel 01904 658482 West Midlands: Karen Holyoake Tel 01384 826891 East Midlands: Fiona Newton Tel 01507 601111 South: Gill Butter Tel 02380 285324 SouthWest: Colin Ellis Tel 01305 838334 East Anglia: Pippa Colchester Tel 01245 437337 South East: David Kincaid Tel 01227 862185 London: David McDonald Tel 020 8881 6724 Scotland: Charles Strang Tel 01835 822560 Wales: Nathan Blanchard Tel 020 7591 6062 Northern Ireland: Sharon BrownTel 028 9754 3087 Republic of Ireland: Bernard DeeTel 00353 1 873 7226 Business Office Jubilee House, High Street, Tisbury, Wiltshire SP3 6HA England Tel 01747 873133 Fax 01747 871718 email admin@ihbc.org.uk
2 C O N T E X T 9 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 5 Context Briefing Copy deadlines Context is published five times a year, in March, May, July, September and November. Copy deadlines in 2006 are: Issue Date March, Issue 93 13 January May, Issue 94 17 March July, Issue 95 19 May September, Issue 96 14 July November, Issue 97 15 September Editor Robert Cowan Editorial Coordinator Mike Brown, 54 High Road, Essendon, Hertfordshire AL9 6AP Tel 020 8379 3865 email mike.brown@enfield.gov.uk Editorial Board Mike Brown (chair) Susan Brook (treasurer and IT) Nigel Crowe (main features) Peter de Figueiredo (book reviews) Michael Taylor (main features) Cartoons by Robert Cowan Context is distributed to all members of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation. © Institute of Historic Building Conservation 2005 ISSN 0958-2746 Publisher Published for the Institute of Historic Building Conservation by Cathedral Communications Limited, High Street, Tisbury,Wiltshire, England SP3 6HA Tel 01747 871717 Fax 01747 871718 email context@cathcomm.demon.co.uk www.buildingconservation.com Non-member subscriptions to Context Context is available to non-members of the IHBC at an annual subscription rate, including postage, of: United Kingdom £50.00 Elsewhere £75.00 Subscription orders, together with remittances payable to Institute of Historic Building Conservation, should be sent to the IHBC Business Office at Jubilee House, High Street, Tisbury, Wiltshire SP3 6HA. The views expressed in Context are not necessarily those held by the IHBC nor the publisher. Neither the publisher nor the IHBC shall be under any liability whatsoever in respect of contributed articles. We gratefully acknowledge the support of firms whose advertisements appear throughout this publication.While every effort has been made to ensure that the information contained in this issue of Context is current and correct, neither the IHBC nor the publisher can be held responsible for any errors or omissions which may occur. Palladian glory at Bexleyheath Danson House, the newly restored Palladian villa in Bexleyheath, earned a commendation in RIBA London’s first conservation awards for its architects Purcell Miller Tritton. Ten years ago English Heritage had described the house as ‘the most significant building at risk in London’. Purcell Miller Tritton found that it was structurally sounder than it looked and that large areas of original Georgian fabric remained, despite Victorian re-decoration and subsequent neglect. The house was built in around 1766 as a suburban country villa for Sir John Boyd, a director of the East India Company. The architect was Robert Taylor. It was embellished byWilliam Chambers, Architect of the King’s Works, in the 1770s. Chambers designed fireplaces and architectural details which survive, and picture frames and mirrors which have been recreated from original drawings and historical evidence. The project has been supported by English Heritage and the Bexley Heritage Trust. Learning landscapes The Association of Gardens Trusts’ conservation conference will be held in Bath on Thursday 6 April 2006, with the title ‘Conflict and Resolution: education establishments in historic parks and gardens’. The conference will ask how the modern educational needs can be met while retaining the historic and cultural value of the grounds of schools. Tickets cost £80. Details from Kate Harwood.Tel 020 7251 2610, agt@gardens-trusts.org.uk Gibson Mill goes green The National Trust is claiming its renovation of a 19th-century cotton mill, Gibson Mill at Hardcastle Crags inYorkshire, as a model of sustainable development. The mill, now a facility for visitors and the local community, will generate all its energy on site, using renewable sources. The building has no mains electricity, and is not connected to mains water or sewerage. Energy will be generated by waterpowered turbines (a hydro-electric turbine installed in 1927 has been restored); photo-voltaic panels; solar hot water panels; and biomass from the woodland. Other green measures at the mill include composting toilets and a human-powered lift using a counterbalance system of pulleys and weights. Six into one makes Icon In October culture minister David Lammy officially launched the Institute of Conservation (Icon). He said there needed to be much greater awareness of heritage conservation, just as people now valued conservation of the environment. Icon has emerged from the convergence of the Care of Collections Forum, Institute of Paper Conservation, Photographic Materials Conservation Group, Scottish Society for Conservation and Restoration, and United Kingdom Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works. The need for convergence was agreed within the National Council for Conservation-Restoration, which has now been disbanded. Icon operates the Conservation Register, the database of expertise in conservation and restoration in the UK; the Conservation Awards; and PACR Accreditation, the principal professional qualification in conservation-restoration. IHBC president David Lovie and Andrew Fane of English Heritage at the launch of Icon
C O N T E X T 9 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 5 3 ‘AS THEWATER recedes across New Orleans, much will be salvageable in even the badly flooded areas.Where we have lost buildings we will rebuild; and it must be with structures built high off the ground and with stronger building codes. ‘These new buildings will reflect the New Orleans that is known and loved around the world. The simplicity of our shotgun houses and Creole cottages can provide the inspiration for building design that can accommodate the simplest needs. This is a time to learn from the buildings that have survived natural disasters.’ Patricia Gay, executive director of the Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans. ‘THE LESSONS we’ve learned from other hurricanes and recovery efforts is that the things that were important before the storm need to be important after the storm. The city that is reborn is one that still has its heritage and culture.’ John Hildreth, director of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s southern office, quoted in Architectural Record News. ‘A CITY IS like a family portrait.You don’t rip this portrait even if you don’t like the nose of your uncle. This portrait is you. ‘You have an opportunity to give the world an example of how to build a more human city. It can be done.’ Jaime Lerner, the celebrated three-times mayor of Curitiba, Brazil, warning officials in New Orleans against getting rid of the city’s blight simply by declaring it unsound. He was quoted in Newsday. ‘SPARED BY Katrina, for the most part, were the city’s most viable portions: the French Quarter, which brings in the tourists; the hotels, which put them up; the older, architecturally refined neighborhoods that attract a core of urban professionals (and give the tourists something to do beyond trolling Bourbon Street); the Central Business District; the port and its shipping construction. These will provide a starting point for renewal. ‘Lost, in the main, but not exclusively, were poorer neighborhoods where tourists rarely ventured. And these, once cleared, will offer a canvas on which the urban visionaries can paint. In this view, what the floods accomplished, albeit brutally, was something no politician could ever suggest: take the poorest and most crime-ridden portions of a city, sweep them more or less clean, and start anew.’ Peter King writing in the Los Angeles Times. ‘IT COMES to me over and over again as I watch news stories of people returning.What they are looking for is family photographs, even of people long gone. Those photos identify where they came from. Buildings are like a family photograph album and it is important to save every bit, every snapshot we can. They also define who we are and where we came from.’ Kenneth H Pool, director of the Historic Preservation Division of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, quoted in the South Mississippi Sun Herald. ‘ONCETHE Naval Brigade Hall was demolished, that set fear in our hearts. If they could tear that historic building down in a heartbeat, what’s to stop them from tearing my home down?’ New Orleans resident Bari Landry commenting on the sudden demolition by out-of-town firemen of a 102-year-old former music school, a landmark of the city’s jazz history, damaged by Hurricane Katrina. ‘NEW ORLEANS was founded in 1718. Back in those days, they didn’t have the luxury of building on marginal land. The city had to be reasonably defensible from natural disasters and enemies.’ Martin Moeller of the National Building Museum, quoted in theWashington Post. ‘[THE PRINCE’S campaign for better buildings] is conservative, but I don’t believe “conservative” is being old, deliberately reactionary or even nostalgic. The words “conservative” and “conservation” are very close to each other.’ Robert Stern, dean of theYale School of Architecture and a member of the Scully prize jury, commenting on the award of the Vincent Scully Prize for architecture and urban design to the Prince ofWales. ‘NOMINATION [of recent buildings for listing] must not be left to art historians, conservation officers who have done a Friday course at the AA or – God save us – planners with geography degrees. ‘We must acknowledge that we are facing an unprecedented degree of change in architectural values through globalisation, and via the new world of computer-designed structures that all share an international ethos, as well as a new approach to aesthetics and culture. ‘But the DCMS remains woolly over buildings of the immediate past. Here the facts are straightforward: there are half a million listed buildings but only three per cent of the total are post-1900. This is a trend that demands reversal.’ Dennis Sharp, co-chair of Docomomo, writing in Building Design. ‘SUPPOSE neighbourhood house prices start rising again after years of free fall, what kind of indicator is that? Good, bad or some mixture of the two? On the one hand, plummeting values have been one of the key symptoms – and maybe also a precipitating cause – of neighbourhood decline, so presumably a reversal of the trend ought to be a good sign. ‘On the other, it could mean very much the opposite, that speculators are at work, and the remaining local population is about to be forced out. Then it could be argued that gentrifying the area, and allowing existing residents to move to new houses elsewhere, might be what the economists call Paretooptimal: everyone better-off, no losers. It all seems to depend on your subjective starting point.’ Sir Peter Hall writing in Regeneration and Renewal of the difficulties of monitoring neighbourhood revitalisation. ‘IT’S NOT an immediately beautiful building and I wasn’t a fan before, but I’ve warmed to it. It’s a gentle monster that is extremely resilient and the intelligence of the “streets in the sky” is extraordinary. ‘We need to romance Park Hill. The main task is to make all the public park spaces more specific so when you enter the area there is a sense of arrival.Why can’t we open up the vistas so it feels like London’s Primrose Hill?’ Urban Splash’s architect Christophe Egret quoted in the Architects’ Journal on their plans to refurbish Sheffield’s Park Hill, designed by Ivor Smith and Jack Lynn in the 1950s and listed Grade II*. Erratum The photograph published with Graham Lott’s article ‘Sourcing and matching stone by petrography’ (Context 91, September 2005, p16) was in fact that of another IHBC Annual School presenter, the ODPM’s Brian Market, not Graham. Apologies to both of them.
4 C O N T E X T 9 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 5 Periodically… Conservation professionals are hard pressed at the best of times. Keeping up with policy and technical developments becomes ever more difficult in an information age that churns it out with ever increasing frequency while more prosaic demands take precedence. Oh, to be able to hide away just once a month to read that growing mountain of instructive paper. One cannot succumb to information overload when there is no time even to appreciate what should be read. No proscription is offered here, but readers may identify several trends. The Autumn issue of SPAB News (Vol 26, No 3) identifies one trend: that English Heritage is to become more ‘constructive’ – everybody’s friend. Philip Venning in his editorial ‘Smiling into oblivion’ warns us to be very afraid. English Heritage is now so desperate to be loved, he observes, that it is to be less confrontational. On the face of it, not such a bad thing, one might think, but Venning poses important questions about a ‘retreat from detailed casework and high-level issues that might otherwise upset the government and developers’. He is the first to ask if this is being too cynical, but attempting to curry favour in the corridors of power was tried before (remember the £44 million cuts?) and failed. Venning also highlights the forthcoming publication of general conservation principles by English Heritage. He fears this while this will be sufficiently general and ambiguous to attract universal support, it may be followed by ‘a later lower-tier of policy statements and practice notes that will be far more specific’. A retreat to the generic, as resources shrink? While it is encouraging to see a wellillustrated item devoted to the training of craftspeople in Transylvania (an issue now very familiar to Context readers), this is not the work of the Transylvania Trust and IHBC but the Mihai Eminescu Trust. The fact that there is no mention of the former (which although more recently established has a very high local profile) may suggest a worrying silo mentality developing over such important and valuable initiatives in Eastern Europe. The principal focus of the issue, however, is the care of ancient bridges, of which 6,500 are listed in England alone. They are often under-regarded. A sequence of short articles highlights issues of history and repair. The SPAB has a well-deserved and long-standing reputation for training. The Autumn newsletter comments on the important report on heritage craft training skills, highlighted so clearly in the (free) report published by the National Heritage Training Group in July. (It is to be hoped that this report, at least, is one you have read.) Other items worth noting are ones on the threat to future supplies of Kentish ragstone and the valuable work of the Kent Building StoneWorking Party, addressing concerns about use and supply; and brief technical advice on the definition and preventative treatment for water penetration. The second trend is a seeming widespread failure to keep up with changing technical standards, although in the example described below this might be quite understandable. The September issue of Natural Stone Specialist (Vol 40, No 9) refers in detail to the disconcerting ignorance among conservation professionals and contractors about the replacement (over a year ago) of British Standard Specification 680 for roofing slate by a new European Specification BS EN 12326 Part 1 (Part 2 on testing standards was issued four years ago). This may have been compounded by the last revision in 2003 of the BS 5534 Code of Practice for slating and tiling (hope you are still with me), which remains current and still refers to BS 680. Just to make matters worse, Regulation 7 of the 2005 Building Regulations refers to BS 8000: Part 6: 1990, the Code of Practice for workmanship on building sites relating to slating and tiling, which itself refers to previous editions of BS 5534. Spanish, Brazilian and Chinese natural slates (to name but three) are hitting the British market in increasing quantities, despite endeavours to promote UK sources. To make some sense of the implications, readers might be well advised to seek out the informative article by Barry Hunt on the revised standards. He observes that in trying to provide greater choice of materials, the new standard has given consumers a raw deal. It fails to eliminate the risks associated with quarries that remain unconvinced about quality testing, or mistrust testing results produced by testing houses in the same country as the quarries. The two prior issues of Natural Stone Specialist – the July and August (Vol 40, Nos 7 and 8) carried a two-part, well-illustrated article by Mike Lawrence
C O N T E X T 9 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 5 5 on the chemistry of lime, how it is made, what happened when it is mixed into mortar, and how it changes when it hardens; and on the real-life impacts for masons and conservation professionals of the chemical and physical changes that occur during setting. Clearly there can never be too many articles about lime.Wherever one turns another one pops up. The latest issue of the RICS Building Conservation Group Journal (No 39) is no exception. Alan Foster of the Scottish Lime Centre Trust discusses the use of lime-based materials in traditional buildings and highlights the performance characteristics of lime mortars. Perhaps currently the same can be said of bridges, with an interesting article on the repair of a scheduled bridge over the River Avon inWiltshire – submitted for the Historic Bridge and Infrastructure Award byWiltshire County Council. Perhaps one final trend might be the increasing use of the internet to search for information. Conservation has been quite slow to embrace this resource. This might partly be due to small organisations’ lack of resources to put their (often considerable) archives on line. In Theatres, the magazine of the Theatres Trust (Issue 5, Autumn 2005), the trust’s information officer Fran Birch writes a short piece which belies its potential significance for future users. If protection is based on understanding, then where theatres are concerned the trust is the obvious place to start. But how many readers are aware of its archives? In this instance, the Heritage Lottery fund is assisting a project for greater accessibility to the tune of £50,000. Since its establishment in 1976, the trust has built up a substantial amount of material, including photographs, slides, plans and correspondence relating to theatres across the UK. It has also acquired collections of older archive material. It estimates that it holds around 30,000 images, 2,700 individual theatre files, and a theatre database with nearly 3,500 records. Some of this information is available online via the trust’s website (www. theatrestrust.org.uk). The pilot version of the database allows a limited search of some 705 theatres. Over the next year a digital image archive will contain over 8,000 images. An online theatre database will, when completed, allow users to search freely both the theatre database and their associated images. Watch this (theatre) space. Bob Kindred MBE ARCHAEOLOGIST The The ARCHAEOLOGIST, the Institute of Field Archaeologists’ highly regarded news and information journal, includes diverse and interesting coverage of developments in UK archaeology as well as news of the latest Institute activities, events and other useful information for front-line archaeology and heritage conservation professionals. The ARCHAEOLOGIST goes out four times a year to the entire IFA membership and to like-minded subscribers. It is particularly useful for keeping up-to-date with the latest developments in this fascinating and rapidly changing field. For subscriptions please contact the IFA on 0118 378 6446 For advertising please contact Cathedral Communications on 01747 871717
6 C O N T E X T 9 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 5 Digital data Managing the historic environment in the digital age Context readers working for local authorities in England will have recently received the long-awaited CDs presenting the listed buildings in their area in electronic form. I wonder how many of you have managed to get at the information without assistance from IT colleagues (or even, like me, found that even with that assistance you were not able to access the information in a form compatible with your local authority’s systems). In the process, you may have come across terms such as .xml and FISH (Forum for Information Standards in the Heritage). They will be far more familiar to our archaeological colleagues, who have long been involved in the development of digital data and the associated standards. It is all too clear that we have a long way to go to reach a consistent level of knowledge and engagement with digital data and standards across the historic environment. David Baker raised some of the issues in his 2001 report Specialist Information Systems Supporting the Work of Conservation Officers. He and I instigated the 2002 IFA/IHBC Oxford conference (papers on www.ihbc.org.uk/ Papers/PATHE2002) specifically to develop common ground among the historic environment community, and in the hope of tackling these issues, among others. Technical expertise is of course only one part of the problem. There are also the fundamental issues of resourcing information systems, and the lack of recognition of the value of such systems in managing resources. These were highlighted in the Local Authority Conservation Provision Survey (Philip Grover for English Heritage and the IHBC, 2003): ‘Most local authorities have responsibility for managing a substantial resource of historic assets. However, many hold inadequate or incomplete information regarding the character or condition of this resource. This is reflected in the lack of comprehensive data on listed buildings and buildings at risk, and minimal coverage by conservation area character appraisals. ‘Furthermore, over two thirds of front-line planning authorities do not maintain comprehensive integrated information systems to support their statutory duty to manage the historic environment. The lack of sufficiently comprehensive information about the historic resource is likely to limit the ability of authorities to make properly informed decisions about its future both in terms of development control and more strategic actions.’ When the DCMS issued its major consultation document Protecting Our Historic Environment: Making the SystemWork Better, also in 2003, there was a simultaneous consultation on Benchmarks for Historic Environment Records. The benchmarks were drafted by the Historic Environment Records Working Party, comprising the Association of Local Government Archaeological Officers (ALGAO), English Heritage and the DCMS. The draft document on benchmarks was strikingly narrow in its approach, particularly so in comparison with the radical review which it accompanied. The IHBC response noted that the change of name from sites and monuments records to historic environment records was premature in the absence of consideration of the broader scope which a historic environment record ought to have, or of the needs of the wider historic environment community. I raised some of the issues in a paper to the Historic Environment Records Forum, later published on the English Heritage website as part of HER News 2 (www.english-heritage.org.uk/upload/ pdf/HER_News_Issue_2.pdf). Subsequently I have represented the IHBC on the Historic Environment RecordWorking Party. In that role I have worked to broaden awareness of the scope and needs of the wider historic environment, while at the same time trying to avoid upsetting my archaeological colleagues’ hopes for both statutory historic environment records, and a dedicated key performance indicator based on the benchmarks. While appreciating others’ disappointment, I was relieved when the proposed indicator failed to get through, because that now gives us all time jointly to develop indicator(s) which truly relate to the needs of the historic environment.
C O N T E X T 9 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 5 7 Meanwhile, hopes for statutory historic environment records remain high (given the support of the All-Party Parliamentary Archaeology Group). They feature strongly in the current Heritage Protection Review. I have found it striking and worrying that the benchmarks (or at least our archaeological colleagues’ interpretations of them) are strongly focused on the management of digital data, when as a local authority conservation professional many of my most urgent concerns in this area have been with the management (or at least avoidance of loss) of vital hard-copy archives – such as records generated through the planning system, building plan and notice drawings held by building control, and so on. In fact, the benchmarks do cover the management of archives as well as digital data, and they do provide for systems in dialogue with each other, as well as single HERs. These and other issues relating to local authority records management and delivery will be considered within Strand B of the Heritage Protection Review and the Heritage Protection Review ANNUAL SCHOOL 2006 ACAB/7</0:3 1=<A3@D/B7=<- =\ bVS EObS`T`]\b ½ # 8c\S $ Ob bVS C\WdS`aWbg ]T >Zg[]cbV 2Sd]\ BVS $ /\\cOZ AQV]]ZÂa bVS[S Wa RS[]\ab`ObW\U bVOb Q]\aS`dObW]\ ]T bVS PcWZb VS`WbOUS Wa Ob bVS VSO`b ]T Qc``S\b bVW\YW\U Q]\QS`\W\U acabOW\OPZS Q][[c\WbWSa O\R SQ]\][WQ RSdSZ]^[S\b >Zg[]cbV ^`]dWRSa O eWRS `O\US ]T aWbSa O\R SfO[^ZSa T]` `SUS\S`ObW]\ O\R [O\g O`S eWbVW\ eOZYW\U RWabO\QS ]T bVS c\WdS`aWbg \SO` bVS QWbg QS\b`S ;O\g W\bS`SabW\U SRcQObW]\OZ O\R S\bS`bOW\W\U OQbWdWbWSa VOdS PSS\ ^ZO\\SR EObQV T]` $ /\\cOZ AQV]]Z P]]YW\U W\T]`[ObW]\ ]\eee WVPQ ]`U cY pilot studies of local authority service delivery. I hope to be contributing to the latter, as part of a pilot involving Cambridgeshire County District Councils, but at the time of writing we are still waiting for confirmation of this. Archaeological data standards and systems, although strongly supported by English Heritage and DCMS, have been developed in what appears to be complete isolation from ODPM’s e-government agenda – and in particular the management systems, such as CAPSUniformwhich many authorities have bought to enable them to meet the ODPM’s requirements. In my experience there has been a total lack of dialogue between DCMS/EH and the ODPM on system requirements and standards. The consequences (to take just two examples) have been that a) the ODPM’s National Land Information Service (NLIS) commitment that all land searches can be carried out electronically is undeliverable (in the absence of full digital data capture of curtilages) in relation to listed buildings, and b) there is no possibility of recording data simultaneously on the Listed Buildings Module of CAPSUniform (if and when it is ever developed into a functional and useful form), and within digital HERs – so all information would have to be entered twice. We tackled these, among other issues, at the IHBC/Institute of Field Archaeologists Oxford Conference ‘Managing the Historic Environment in the Digital Age’ in May 2005. A second part of this article, in a future issue of Context, will cover matters discussed at the conference, and related issues emerging in the Heritage Protection Review. I am keen to hear about readers’ experiences and concerns across the UK in relation to this area. If you are concerned and are willing to become involved on behalf of IHBC, please email me at education@ihbc.org.uk. John Preston, historic environment manager for Cambridge City Council and IHBC education secretary, has represented the IHBC on the Historic Environment Record Forum and the Historic Environment RecordsWorking Party.
8 C O N T E X T 9 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 5 This article deals with an important issue that often arises where planning authorities are determining applications for proposals that also raise other considerations – namely, how conservation issues are dealt with, and how the representations of specialist groups should be taken into account. The issue arose recently in connection with a decision by the London Borough of Enfield to grant listed building consent and planning permission for a change of use of Truro House in Enfield (a Grade II listed building on the English Heritage register of buildings at risk) to offices and a consulting room, and for the erection of a nursing home in its curtilage. The proposals for Truro House were submitted to the council in January 2003, and considered by the council’s conservation advisory group (CAG) in February. They were then due to be considered at a meeting of the planning committee, with an officer’s report recommending that the applications be refused. However, the applications were withdrawn before the meeting, and revised proposals submitted in May. In the meanwhile, there had been a council election, and the membership of the CAG and the planning committee changed. The new proposals were again considered by the CAG, later in May, and again by the planning committee, in June, but this time with a favourable officer’s report. The committee decided (albeit only by a majority of one) to grant listed building consent and planning permission. One of the objectors then challenged the council’s decision in the High Court, on the grounds that: v the council had failed to take into account points raised by officers regarding highways and access v the fact that some members of the CAG were also members of the planning committee gave rise to an appearance of bias v members of the committee were not adequately informed as to the need for the proposed development and its impact on existing services v they were not adequately informed about the responses to consultation. The outcome of the challenge is reported as Georgiou v Enfield LB [2005] JPL 62. The court considered first the second issue – the consequences of the CAG being involved. The CAG consisted of six council members and 19 representatives of the local community. Its remit was to consider and advise the planning committee on proposals referred to it that might affect conservation areas, listed buildings and their settings, and on the preservation and enhancement of historic buildings and areas. At the February meeting to consider the Truro House proposal, the committee concluded that it was encouraged by the proposals, which represented a good opportunity to restore the building, with a development sensitive to the history of the site. At that meeting, there were present two council members who were also to be members of the committee that took the final decision in June. When the revised proposals came to the newly constituted CAG in May, it continued to support them. There were then three councillors present who were also to be members of the committee in June, and a fourth who was a member of the CAG although not present at that meeting, and also present at the June meeting. Unsurprisingly, at that meeting, the three members of the planning committee who had also been present at the CAG in May voted in favour of them, although the absent member voted against. The problem was that the CAG perfectly properly considered proposals only in the context of conservation issues, rather than with reference to the wider planning issues that might be involved (such as traffic, noise, economic impact, and many others). However if ,as a result, the CAG simply voted ‘in favour of’ a proposal, and the proposal then proceeded to a meeting of the planning committee at which some members had been party to such a vote, it might appear that they would have a closed mind when they came to vote in the committee. Counsel for the local authority argued that the fact that the CAG considered only conservation issues meant that its ‘decision’ could not amount to a predetermination of the applications; and that those LEGAL BRIEFING Conservation issues in planning decisions Charles Mynors considers some of the issues that can arise when a specialist group and a council’s planning committee take opposing views of a development proposal.
C O N T E X T 9 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 5 9 councillors who were members of both the CAG and the planning committee did not arrive at the committee meeting in June with closed minds. However, the Court held that that was precisely the problem: ‘Although the CAG’s remit was to consider only the conservation implications of the applications, its conclusion was expressed in simple terms of support for the applications, without any qualification. Both the note of the CAG meeting on 27 May and the report to the planning committee on 17 June state that the CAG “continued to support” the applications. Moreover, although there is nothing to show that a vote was taken within the CAG, there is equally nothing to show that any of the members present dissented from that conclusion: the support appeared to come from all those present, including the three members who were also members of the planning committee. When it came to the meeting of the planning committee, nothing was said about the limited function of the CAG or about the need for those with dual membership to put on one side the support expressed in the CAG, and to examine all the relevant planning issues before reaching the planning decisions. ‘In those circumstances, I take the view, though not without a degree of hesitation, that a fair-minded and informed observer would conclude that there was a real possibility of bias, in the sense of the decisions being approached with closed minds and without impartial consideration of all the planning issues, as a result of the support expressed by the CAG being carried over into the support for the applications in the context of the planning committee’s decisions.’ The court accordingly found in favour of the objector, and quashed the decisions on that ground – and also, incidentally, on each of the other three grounds – even though the judge explicitly recognised the importance attached to the development for conservation reasons.They were accordingly sent back to be re-determined by the council. The first lesson from this case is that, while dual membership of a conservation advisory group and a planning committee can have advantages for both bodies, it does bring with it certain conflicts of interest. This was recognised in Enfield, in a report which drew attention to the situation that may arise where a member has commented publicly, and possibly voted, on a planning application at the conservation group – without the benefit of a report covering all relevant issues. That may then prejudice his or her position as a member of the planning committee subsequently considering the same matter, since conservation issues may be but one of a number of issues that need to be considered. The court thus concluded that it was not unlawful for there to be joint membership, but that all concerned should understand and acknowledge openly the need to ensure that participation in a specialist advisory group does not lead to any pre-determination of an application, which must be approached in the planning committee with an open mind and by impartial consideration of all the planning issues. Second, and very importantly, this case highlights a point that is sometimes (perhaps, by some, often) forgotten – namely, that there is more to life than conservation. As it happens, in the Enfield case, the conservation issues militated in favour of permission being granted, whereas highways and other issues indicated a refusal. Often they go the other way. But whichever way the various considerations point, they must be considered as a whole when an application is being finally determined. Thus it is perfectly proper for English Heritage, national and local amenity groups, special conservation committees, and of course individual residents, to put forward views based solely on the conservation issues involved in a particular proposal. So, for example, they may say that ‘the erection of an extension on the east side of the house will spoil that elevation and impair the overall interest of the building as the last unaltered villa of its kind in this area…’ That is a helpful and accurate viewpoint. But they should not continue, as so many do, “… and the application should therefore be refused.’ It may well be that the conservation issues are the only issues at stake, in which case the proposal should indeed be refused. But it may be that there are other considerations involved, pointing the other way. A proper conclusion might thus be that a proposal is slightly undesirable on conservation grounds, but hugely desirable for some other reason, so that on balance it should be permitted. Indeed, arguably, a specialist lobby group – whether in the interests of building conservation or the preservation of newts – is the last person to make a disinterested assessment of the overall merits of a proposal. It can fight its corner, but it must not seek to imply that its specialist interest is of necessity the only material consideration; it may be, but it may well not be. Enthusiasm, even fanaticism, has its place, but it must not be allowed to cloud mature, balanced judgment. Charles Mynors is a barrister in the Chambers of Robin Purchas QC in the Temple, and a visiting professor in the planning department at Oxford Brookes University.The fourth edition of his seminal book, Listed Buildings, Conservation Areas and Monuments: the Law of the Cultural Heritage, to be published by Sweet & Maxwell at the end of this year, has been completely rewritten to include all relevant new legislation and decisions of the courts since the previous edition, and to refer fully to Scotland and Northern Ireland as well as England andWales.
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C O N T E X T 9 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 5 11 DANIEL BLUESTONE The politics of preserving place In Chicago’s bungalow belt local knowledge is helping to guide policy for preserving architectural heritage, galvanise citizenship and strengthen the fabric of local communities. Historical analysis of everyday housing, urban preservation policy and political action in Chicago have gone hand in hand with the Historic Chicago Bungalow Initiative, launched by the city in September 2000. Chicago planners and policy makers came to realise that the fate of the city’s stock of affordable single-family housing was inextricably linked to the fate of Chicago bungalows built in the early decades of the 20th century. They established grant programmes and property tax incentives to encourage bungalow rehabilitation and energy conservation.They also developed design guidelines that help protect architectural integrity while ensuring that bungalows would provide accommodation into their second century and beyond. Long appreciated as an extremely popular housing form by builders, realtors and middle- and lowermiddle class homeowners, the Chicago bungalow had received only limited historical consideration from architectural historians. Between 1910 and 1930 Chicago developers built tens of thousands of one and one-and-one-half-storey brick bungalows on large tracts of land previously occupied by farms and prairie fields.1 These new bungalow neighbourhoods represented a major innovation in Chicago urbanism. Here a new style of house, unprecedented in the previous century, provided Chicago homebuyers of moderate means with extraordinary levels of domestic comfort made possible through innovative systems of heating, plumbing, and electricity. Generally rectangular in plan, with the narrow end facing the street, the bungalow mass was dominated by low-pitched overhanging roofs. The front elevations had face brick, with stone trim, while the side and rear walls were constructed of common brick. Expansive windows openings flooded interiors with natural light. Small porches generally occupied the front and the rear of the house.2 New residents of the bungalow neighbourhood onWest Argyle Avenue in 1922 Bungalows designed by AxelV Teisen and built in 1917–18 onWest Grace Street in Chicago’s Irving Park Gardens neighbourhood
12 C O N T E X T 9 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 5 social, and cultural form. We found that as people come to know their homes and neighbourhoods better in both historical and architectural terms, they tend to form greater attachments to place while better understanding the complexity of public and private decisions that shape urban landscapes. Towards this end, I helped establish a framework for the potential listing of 80,000 Chicago bungalows on the US Department of the Interior’s National Register of Historic Places. Neighbourhood residents were clearly thrilled to participate in a process that located the bungalow within the broader narrative of Chicago’s architectural and social history.They were also genuinely pleased to learn more specific stories of the designers, builders and early residents associated with their houses and neighbourhoods. Moreover, the identification of the distinct form of the bungalow has helped attract creative design and financial support to guide the renovation and expansion of these homes while preserving their architectural and urban character. The Bungalow Association was started with a grant fromtheCity of Chicago for $2.5million to fund the first five years of operation.With strong support fromMayor Richard M Daley, the bungalow initiative has been strengthened by an unusually broad coalition among city departments, including housing, cultural affairs, planning/landmarks, environment, transportation and building. Private philanthropic foundations have also supported the Bungalow Association: the Richard H Driehaus Foundation supported the historical research involved in nominating Chicago bungalows to the National Register. Chicago’s bungalows emerged as a local appropriation and variant of a house style that was national in scope. The bungalow style was well represented in all parts of the USA. Popular magazines like Ladies Home Journal, Good Housekeeping and The Craftsman, as well as pattern books and catalogues from companies like Aladdin Homes of Bay City, Michigan, and Radford Architectural Company of Chicago, promoted the national diffusion of the bungalow style. Bungalow building kits advertised by Sears, Roebuck, Montgomery Ward and other companies further popularised the style. Nevertheless, Chicago’s massive population expansion, from 1.7 million in 1900 to 3.4 million in Typically built with bedrooms on the first floor, bungalows anticipated the public acceptance of modern houses planned on a single level that came to characterise popular housing form for much of the 20th century. The unfinished attic spaces, illuminated with gable end windows or roof dormers, provided a space into which a family could expand when resources permitted. The bungalow played a crucial role in fostering home ownership among the expanding ranks of Chicago’s middle- and lower-middle classes. Despite the bungalow’s prominence in shaping the Chicago landscape, it was the suburban houses designed by Frank LloydWright, the skyscrapers of Louis Sullivan, and the civic, residential and commercial buildings by Mies van der Rohe that have shaped the canon of Chicago architecture – attracting the lion’s share of critical analysis. Part of the recent efforts to help conserve Chicago bungalow neighbourhoods has involved an effort to understand the bungalow as a distinct architectural, The Bungalow Association’s design guidelines booklet provides advice on how to expand bungalows while maintaining their historic character. Left: A meeting between bungalow owners and a member of the American Institute of Architects, facilitated by the Historic Chicago Bungalow Association Right:The 2004 Bungalow Exposition, hosted by the Historic Chicago Bungalow Association
C O N T E X T 9 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 5 13 1930, in the years of the greatest popular enthusiasm for the bungalow, meant that the bungalow was particularly well represented in Chicago. The Chicago bungalow project helped frame key aspects of their distinct development in Chicago: an identity rooted in local building practices and regulations, prevailing patterns of land division and transportation, and the regional market for building materials. Interestingly, many of the most prominent national promoters of bungalows looked askance at their construction in dense city neighbourhoods – the sort of placement necessary for economical building in Chicago. Gustav Stickley, the apostle of the arts and crafts movement, for example, generally avoided promoting houses intended for urban lots. His advocacy of economy, simplicity and honesty of home construction could theoretically extend to the urban house. However, dense urban lots undercut a primary tenet of Stickley’s arts and crafts ideals – the restoration of a harmonious relationship between people, their houses and nature. In 1909, laying out the elements of his ‘craftsman idea’, Stickley addressed the urban context directly. ‘We need hardly say that a house of the kind we have described belongs either in the open country or in a small village or town, where the dwellings do not elbow or crowd one another any more than the people do.We have planned houses for country living because we firmly believe that the country is the only place to live in. The city is all very well for business, for amusement and some formal entertainment, in fact for anything and everything that, by its nature, must be carried on outside of the home. But the home itself should be in some place where there is peace and quiet, plenty of room and the chance to establish a sense of intimate relationship with the hills and valleys, trees and brooks and all the things which tend to lessen the strain and worry of modern life.’3 Part of the achievement of Chicago builders, architects and residents came in their reworking of a house form initially envisioned for country living in the context of Chicago’s street grid and narrower residential lots. There is an important parallel between the omission of the bungalow from the narrative of Chicago architecture and the chilly reception many architects and critics gave the form at the height of the popular ‘bungalow craze’. In 1911, just as brick bungalows began to appear on Chicago streets, Henry Saylor published his popular book Bungalows: their design, construction and furnishing, with suggestions also for camps, summer homes and cottages of similar character. Saylor shared with Stickley the sense that bungalows needed to be built in country settings. In 1911, architect Wilson Eyre declared the inappropriateness of the bungalow as a permanent form of residential architecture. Eyre wrote: ‘The bungalow, I take it, is not a new style of suburban home. It is misused as such, and it is generally objectionable when so used… In general, I do not believe in the one-storey house for an all-year dwelling. It is a fad which, like Mission furniture, is being much overdone… In my opinion, this bungalow style is not destined to produce any lasting effect on domestic architecture in America.’4 Such writers clearly misjudged both the popularity of the bungalow and the ingenuity of architects and builders determined to give a new shape to the residential landscape in American cities like Chicago. Until recently historians have themselves underestimated the significance of bungalow design. One of the interesting things that surfaced in our research on Chicago bungalows was the influence of apartment design and living upon bungalow design. Bungalows built in the 1920s in Elmwood Park
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