The Building Conservation Directory 2021

14 T H E B U I L D I N G C O N S E R VAT I O N D I R E C T O R Y 2 0 2 1 C AT H E D R A L C O MM U N I C AT I O N S as a pejorative term in the century and a quarter since Morris’s time. Preservation is admittedly a concept fundamentally associated with stasis, precluding any change in use or function. While the role of conservation sustaining heritage is widely accepted, conservation today is expected to be ‘constructive’, and we favour the dynamic approach to decision-making focussed on the identification of significance, so that decisions are reached in a timely manner. Developers, politicians and others condemn those who advocate for preserving things as ‘reactionaries’, intent on hindering progress. Historians tend to see things differently, arguing that getting the ‘long view’ is vital. As a tool for managing change, preservation may not identify a path for decision making. It prioritises instead the sustaining of heritage for its intrinsic value with its raw qualities and essences intact, allowing its genius loci, spirit of place, to emerge. Rescuing the monuments of fascism or of the Third Reich from decay and obscurity comes with the risk of rehabilitating the legitimacy of these regimes. Donald Insall Associates’ involvement with 9 Carlton House Terrace, which was the Germany Embassy in London in the period up to 1939, included the decision not to reveal a long-concealed floor of wood parquet which included swastikas prominently in its design. In reaching this decision we were guided by German constitutional law which prohibits such display. Sadly, the ideological failure of Nazism is not universally accepted, its symbols consequently still potent and disturbing. The recent declaration by Dresden’s administration of Nazinotstand, Nazi-emergency, in response to far-right activists in the city was necessary because historical memory of the Third Reich persists. However, reuse of the former Nazi training facility Ordensburg Vogelsang in the Eifel National Park in Germany as a visitor and exhibitions centre preserves prominent Nazi symbols in an architectural context. In an educational heritage setting, this is considered thought-provoking and valuable. The Second World War and the 1943–45 Italian Civil War in its aftermath cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Italians, including many who merely had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Notwithstanding this, power transferred from the Kingdom of Italy to the modern Republic by legal means of a referendum in 1946. Continuity meant that there was no systematic purge comparable with contemporary denazification by the allied powers in Germany, who founded new administrations to replace the defeated Third Reich. In Italy, unlike Germany, there is no constitutional law prohibiting public display of fascist symbols. Consequently, there was controversy surrounding the 2009 restoration of the fascist oath of loyalty to the regime in giant letters on the former Casa Balilla in Forli, removed by anti-fascist iconoclasts in 1943. Equally controversial was the 2006 proposal by Rome’s then mayor, Gianni Alemanno, to tear down the then newly completed Ara Pacis museum, designed by the American architect Richard Maier, and to reconstruct its fascist era predecessor by Vittorio Ballio Morpurgo. Popular attitudes towards proposals such as these are invariably coloured one way or another by identification with the regime. Historical memory of fascism continues to shape events today and the future of the heritage of the period remains unsettled, and for many, unsettling. By its definition, the significance of contested heritage is not fully recognised because there is no consensus on the values and meanings of its history, of what has gone before. It is part of human nature that our memories tend to selectively validate our past thoughts and actions and to reinforce our predisposition towards particular perspectives of thought and ultimately action in the present. Ignorance, complacency and misplaced pride continue to shape attitudes towards the United Kingdom’s imperial past. There have been calls in the UK for a truth commission to examine historical injustice. Internationally, only the government of Mauritius has yet established such a commission to this end. A truth commission might establish history apart from historical memory and may therefore guide the process by which we can de-colonise heritage, but this will require considerable time and resources. The need for a broader definition of our history and culture, encompassing varied perspectives of all those who make up our society, is clear. Our understanding of heritage, historically defined by the western culture in which we live, is rapidly changing and diversifying under the influence of wider cultural experience. Richard Lambert, Chairman of the British Museum, in his recent essay The New Old has described Europe’s singular perspective of its own cultural history and sets this in context of the full depth of field in the 21st century. Clearly, the models that we use to think about heritage need to adapt to encompass broader definition. Dealing with contested heritage is an important aspect of this and one of the biggest professional challenges we face. The recognition that heritage values fundamentally concern people and communities, promises a future for heritage that is more diverse and better understood than in the past. Built heritage can be used to debunk the myths of historical memory, but it is also vulnerable to appropriation by those seeking to validate historical prejudices. Professional approaches to the evaluation and management of heritage will require a wider range of inputs than in the past if the communal and political contests around it are not to deepen, ultimately making it irrelevant to the wider community. Preservation may not identify a path to facilitate this, but it remains a useful concept because it disconnects the value of heritage from its communication, allowing a full spectrum of values to be sustained. Recommended Reading Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945 , William Heinemann, Cornerstone, 2003 Kojo Koram, ‘Britain needs a truth and reconciliation commission, not another racism inquiry’, The Guardian , 16 June 2020 Richard Lambert ‘The New Old’, Tortoise Media , 10 August 2020 D Medina Lasansky, The Renaissance Perfected, Architecture, Spectacle & Tourism in Fascist Italy, Penn State Press, 2004 Priya Pillai, ‘Truth Commissions and Colonial Atrocities: Moving the Needle Further Towards State Responsibility?’, Opiniojuris.org , 27 April 2019 SPAB, Manifesto of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings , 1877 US Department of the Interior National Parks Service, ‘The Secretary of the Interior, Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties’, 2017 PATRICK DUERDEN is an architect and Practice Director at Donald Insall Associates (see page 16). He leads the practice’s work for the Parliamentary Estate and for Historic Royal Palaces. Ordensburg Vogelsang, Nordrhein-Westfalen (1934–36) designed by Clemens Klotz is now an interpretive centre for the Eifel National Park.