Course: Unit XVIII Lost Properties
Charting death-knells to iconic modern public buildings through pronouncements by Culture ministers demonstrates the constant eagerness for politicians to be associated with renewal. Conversely, legislative frameworks protect older heritage. As “conservation areas” are identified, public affection is fostered to re-interpret an architectural inheritance that may be manifestly bound with instruments of oppression. These temporal gates of affection and disgust are goaded into popular cultural norms and can readily be plotted, putting buildings between 30 and 60 years of age most at risk of disposal. However, our relationship as architects to heritage, in France literally patrimoine – our father’s work, is confused. Paradoxically, the generational turnover of architectural education teaches us to counter public opinion and revere most the ingenuity of precisely that era of thinking that belongs in the unloved domain of the immediate past. Whether those (hitherto almost entirely) male actors were paragons of virtue or agents of corruption, we learn how their buildings must also be regarded as exceptionally beautiful. The intentions behind the fascist’s arena may be as deplorable as the layout of back-to-back streets, yet we need new futures for both.
In 2020, across the post-colonial world, thorny legacies of oppression have been challenged, uprooting the assumed rights of imperialism manifest in its extant trophies as monuments, buildings and cities. Beyond the significance of overturning or concealing statues of historic oppressors, their removal from public consciousness is problematic also. In addition, built or tangible heritage is not only the legacy of those who ordered or paid for it to be built but must also be regarded as that of those whose hands, eyes and legs lifted, carted, quarried, mixed, aligned, sanded and polished it. It is not wrong to cherish a handmade lace bonnet for a baby who grew up to be a tyrant if what you marvel at is the workmanship and skill of its maker, nor that you are made able to reflect on the mountain of privilege that enabled that object to come into being. The requirement for respecting both the technical and revealing the poetic remain the architect’s responsibility.
Over 80% of building projects in the UK are to existing buildings, imperatives to improve the energy efficiency of our existing building stock buildings are indisputable. Although principles of sustainability and re-use are instinctively intertwined, challenges in detail remain complex. It is precisely the post-war era of intensively serviced buildings built with innovative materials that perform least well. There is a risk that the impetus to meet emissions targets will serve to accelerate the destruction of recent built heritage in particular. To engage creatively with these buildings, we may disentangle their physical attributes from the awkward associations of intangible heritage but critically, we must also work intelligently with their original technical intent.
Anticipating that the conservation of twentieth century architecture will become an overwhelming technical challenge for future architects in the UK, this studio intends to forearm itself by accumulating expertise. In North America, where all buildings over 50 years old are defined as historic, the technical opus relating to preservation is consequently more focussed on recent building technologies. We will connect with experts in Chicago and with academics in materials science who can inform us about the future treatments of our past in technical terms. We will also open dialogues with colleagues in India and Italy who can relate the complexity of ethical relationships to imperial legacies for building conservation.