Critical Built Heritage Practice And Conservation

Critical Built Heritage Practice and Conservation - Evolving Perspectives supports an alternative point of departure for engaging with the historic built environment, by critically questioning the legitimacy of dominant conservation concepts and methods that are often taken for granted within building conservation, architecture, and adaptive reuse. The meaning of heritage is changing. From pastness to presentness, from preservation to participation, and from tangible to intangible, heritage is increasingly understood as a dynamic, social, and intangible process across many disciplines. Consequently, the role and remit of the built heritage practitioner – and in particular the architectural conservationist – is becoming progressively complex and in need of a critical gaze. Is restoration really a falsehood from beginning to end? Should the condition of existing materials determine the conservation method? Is authenticity really an inherent quality within old buildings? By engaging with a critical interpretation of heritage, this book makes space for practitioners to consider the evolution of their own role within a rapidly changing context of built heritage practice. Reinforced by a shift in emphasis from materials to meanings, a ‘socio-material outlook’ is proposed which champions an enhanced focus on intangible heritage within the built heritage sector, whilst still acknowledging the physical condition of old buildings is a priority for many stakeholders. This book has been written with practitioners, students, and educators of architectural conservation in mind – although will also be of relevance to the broader built heritage industry; as well as academics, researchers, and heritage students with a passion for contemporary dialogues in heritage studies.

Human-Centered Built Environment Heritage Preservation addresses the question of how a human-centred conservation approach can and should change practice. For the most part, there are few answers to this question because professionals in the heritage conservation field do not use social science research methodologies to manage cultural landscapes, assess historical significance and inform the treatment of building and landscape fabric. With few exceptions, only academic theorists have explored these topics while failing to offer specific, usable guidance on how the social sciences can actually be used by heritage professionals. In exploring the nature of a human-centred heritage conservation practice, we explicitly seek a middle ground between the academy and practice, theory and application, fabric and meanings, conventional and civil experts, and orthodox and heterodox ideas behind practice and research. We do this by positioning this book in a transdisciplinary space between these dichotomies as a way to give voice (and respect) to multiple perspectives without losing sight of our goal that heritage conservation practice should, fundamentally, benefit all people. We believe that this approach is essential for creating an emancipated built heritage conservation practice that must successfully engage very different ontological and epistemological perspectives.

This new edition examines management of built heritage through the use of values-led decision making, based on an understanding of the significance of the cultural asset. It considers how significance is assessed and used as an effective focus and driver for management strategies and processes. The authors consider key policies and procedures that need to be implemented to help ensure effective management. The book will be useful for specialists in built heritage - conservation officers, heritage managers, architects, planners, engineers and surveyors - as well as for facilities and estates managers whose building stock includes protected or designated structures or buildings in conservation or other historic areas. describes management strategies and tools for a wide range of built heritage assets a reflective and informative guide on current conservation management explains how understanding and using conservation values (significance ) is essential to the protection of the built heritage uses real-life examples to draw out best practice

Conservation is now a major part of planners', surveyors' and architects' work load. This review of recent conservation schemes carried out by the County Councils in England and Wales will provide a unique and indispensable reference book for professionals in the construction industry embarking on 'heritage' work. Using detailed and highly-illustrated case studies, the book documents over 100 schemes from industrial archaeology to historic parks.

The word conservation, when used in the context of the preservation of built heritage, implies an intrinsically complex concept that evolved over time, since it has been influenced by the perception of history throughout time. This volume emphasises why an understanding of the cultural evolution of the conservation approach must be considered a prerequisite for architects and engineers if they are to cooperate in full harmony with historic-artistic culture for the preservation of global built heritage. In particular, the volume highlights how, during the second half of the last century, the preservation process also involved engineering – the science of making practical applications of knowledge – which, for a long time, made an uncritical use of techniques and materials and devised interventions on historical heritage that were heavily invasive. The volume also devotes special attention to the problems related to seismic risk, to which Italy, Greece and Portugal are particularly prone. Problems that emerge during the crisis and reconstruction phases are dealt with in detail, as is scheduled maintenance, as this latter approach always constitutes an improvement in the performance of the monument and is the most appropriate tool for the conservation of the built heritage. Finally, the volume collects examples of building restoration with case studies of many outstanding monuments. The work will appeal to professionals and academics in the broader fields of civil engineering (both geotechnical and structural engineering), architecture, art history, the history of architecture, restoration and cultural heritage management. This book will: Provide a critical reading of the history of conservation; Discuss materials and techniques of ancient architecture; Cover seismic vulnerability and preservation of the historic integrity of the monument; Advocate an approach based on programmed maintenance; Feature numerous case histories, including St Mark’s Basilica in Venice and the complex restoration of the cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris.

This title was first published in 2002.Employing a range of case studies from three northern European countries - England, Sweden and The Netherlands - this captivating book explores the process of heritage conservation from theoretical initiation to practical expression. It traces the threads from the origination of conservation ideas by innovative individuals, their adoption by voluntary groups identified with particular conservation aims, to the inclusion of conservation policies in national legislation and international convention. A common cultural heritage underpins the diffusion of ideas across different systems within a similar time-scale. The ideas have been assimilated and adopted to differing degrees, providing the opportunity for questioning both the strength and purpose in heritage conservation, and the influence of the social and political context. This will be a stimulating read for an international audience of conservationists, heritage policy makers, conservation architects, planners and developers, urban design and planning scholars, and European and cultural studies academics.

Bringing together leading conservation scholars and professionals from around the world, this volume offers a timely look at values-based approaches to heritage management. Over the last fifty years, conservation professionals have confronted increasingly complex political, economic, and cultural dynamics. This volume, with contributions by leading international practitioners and scholars, reviews how values-based methods have come to influence conservation, takes stock of emerging approaches to values in heritage practice and policy, identifies common challenges and related spheres of knowledge, and proposes specific areas in which the development of new approaches and future research may help advance the field.