Journal 7: The Heroic Period of Conservation

Published 2004 £18.50
Format 255x198mm, 160pp, colour cover

The idea that conservation can be ‘heroic’ is a deliberately provocative borrowing from Alison and Peter Smithson’s description of the 1920s and ‘The Heroic Period of Modern Architecture’.

It was in the 1960s, just when the Smithsons were writing, that conservation emerged in Britain as a mainstre am aspect of architecture, introducing precisely those issues about social purpose, urbanism and ecology that were central to architecture’s participation in the counterculture and its resistance to global capitalism.

This collection of essays looks at individual heroes such as Ian Nairn, Lionel Esher and Wayland Kennet whose convictions about the spiritual value of a good environment inspired public policy. It also explores early successes and failures in Scotland, Newcastle, York, Coventry, Plymouth and Kent, which demonstrated the potential for imaginative conservation and for public participation. The Heroic Period of Conservation reveals the significance of conservation in British architectural and cultural history of the last fifty years, recapturing a valuable legacy that is now once more under threat.

Contents

Conservation: the Heroic Period Alan Powers
Ian Nairn: Gavin Stamp
Anthony Swaine and Conservation in East Kent Richard Morrice
Plymouth’s Historic Barbican Chris Robinson
From the Black Prince to the Silver Prince: Relocating Mediaeval Coventry Robert Gill
York: A Suitable Case for Conservation John Gold
Newcastle upon Tyne 1945-2003 Cyril Winskell
‘Sturdy Homes, Living Homes’: The National Trust for Scotland’s Little Houses Improvement Scheme Diane M. Watters
New Lives, New Landscapes: Morality and Landscape in 1970s Britain Simon Wartnaby
SAVE and the Seventies Kenneth Powell
The Twentieth Century Society: A Brief History Alan Powers and Gavin Stamp

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