The Conservative Idea of Architecture: Conservation and Restoration

by David Hamilton (December 2011)

Villa Savoye illustrates Le Couturier’s “five points” of new architecture and is a foundation of modern architecture, and the International style that came to dominate.

Even functional buildings can be awe-inspiring like the Houses of Parliament which was built for debating issues of state; but its design raised above mere function and conveys the solemnity and respect for the business of state. It is more than a square lump of concrete. (1)

There is an affective view of society as an organic arrangement that derives from Aristotle, the first Conservative. In Politics he spoke of the city as a natural community. It is an organic whole rather than a machine and the whole is harmed by destroying parts. In the architectural and town planning context, demolishing fine and beautiful buildings and replacing them with cold and ugly buildings, undermines the quality and identity of the whole town or city. Aristotle described men and women as political animals but, more accurately, they are communal beings and need to belong to a family and community. Contemporary architecture both commercial and domestic is helping break the bonds which create living communities.

People like to describe themselves as individuals because it flatters their egos but in practice they need others: friends, to talk to and to share with, a family to return to when hurt or distressed and a a partner when they leave childhood behind and want children of their own. This is a natural stage in life as they want an external sign of their togetherness and they grow naturally into that state. Architecture is a part of that affective side of life. It is not a distant artistic activity like knocking up a couple of watercolours, it is central to our lives. These are emotional, affective experiences not products of reason.

It is part of an understanding of the universe which values the numinous things over the cold and soulless.

If the authorities thought they could get away with it they would knock St. Paul's down for a shopping mall; but it brings in a lot of revenue from tourism.

Our towns and cities are being changed into something completely different without the consent of the people. Cityscapes are ceasing to belong to local people and being turned into futuristic muddles, disjointed from history and traditions with the character changed. This is imposed, but should be democratically voted for.

Rochester High Street, has wide pavements and old-style lamp posts. It is unique for the absence of the usual High Street retailers. The shops are small and not attractive to national retailers so it has a large number of traditional shops and many are family-owned and offer a personalised service to customers. Rochester High Street is an educational contrast to the mess made of both Chatham and Gillingham High Streets. Gillingham does have a conservation area in Brampton with some fine Georgian houses in Mansion Row; but the changes to Gillingham since the 1970's are depressing.

The old Theatre Royal in Chatham High Street was smothered in polythene and scaffolding for a long time but once the bulldozers had finished it had gone.

Nearly opposite the Old Theatre Royal is a repellent nine-floor Tax Office. This overlooks the river and blights the view. Another monstrosity is the Pentagon shopping centre which holds within its confines, Mountbatten House: another ugly multi-storey building. This hideous thing blocks the view of the river from the top of Chatham Hill. There was a rumour that the same type of bricks used to build Mountbatten House were to be found in the extensions erected on houses owned by councillors. It was empty for a long time after it was built and one wonders why it it was given planning permission.

The centre of Chatham has been carved up by a one way system and many shops are empty as they cannot compete with the out of town shopping centres.

In Tewkesbury there is a row of restored timber framed buildings on Church Street which were built in 1480. These house a museum named after local writer and early conservationist John Moore, and an open house that people can walk around and get the feel of how a Tudor family lived. The rest, though, are private dwellings and thus a living tradition. This is continuity in practice.

Roger Scruton dismissed the organic as a metaphor but language originates in metaphor as we try to describe the world around us and because objects have no intrinsic names. To say the world is a machine is also a metaphor. There is a discernible Traditional Conservative approach to town planning and architecture that we are developing.

American conservatives tend to be more abstract than their British counterparts because their origins were in the dawn of the Liberal era. Brett Stevens of Amerika.org has original views on architecture and conservation which is an American variant but part of the same general movement. (3)

When architecture grows from tradition, local people, especially the young, are better adjusted and happier. Conversely, there is a syndrome of social, cultural, political and environmental pressures that are dissociating people from their communal identity, severing them from traditional civilizing structures that their ancestors could take for granted and leaving them feeling out of place and angry towards their social environments.

(4)

Throughout the 19th century several renovations were carried out. The original furniture of the various rooms is either still there or is held at the Bijloke museum of Ghent.

I recall an occasion when a Swedish man asked me for directions to Shrewsbury Station. He had been too much with “Bacchus and his pards” but unable to be “charioted” by them wanted to catch a train back to Leeds. I had difficult time convincing him that Shrewsbury station was a railway station – he was convinced that it was a cathedral.

The station is copybook example of appropriate building. It was opened in October 1848 for the first railway from Shrewsbury to Chester. And the architect was Thomas Penson of Oswestry. The building is unusual, in that the station was extended between 1899 and 1903 by the construction of a new floor underneath the original station building, rather than on top.

The style was imitation Tudor, and had carvings of Tudor style heads around the window frames to match the Tudor building of Shrewsbury School which is now used for Shrewsbury Library on the other side of the road. They took care that it fitted in and did not ruin the ambiance of the area as contemporary buildings do. The main building of the station is a Grade II listed building.

A view I have proposed is the rebuilding of certain awe-inspiring and important traditional buildings that have been wantonly demolished. One example is the once grand Euston railway station in London. The proposed new station is appalling and even more grotesque than the last one whereas the original was redolent of grandeur and respect for the tradition and culture it was being added to. It should be restored to what it was. (5)

The palace is intended to be the main tourist attraction in Berlin. Dresden Church has been rebuilt as have other historic parts of the city.

Some European countries have preserved whole medieval towns. Sighisoara is a deeply impressive fortified town in Transylvania, Romania. The town with medieval houses is very important for European culture and history. (7) The defence system was built by medieval guilds consisted of a wall of 930 meters in length, fourteen defence towers and five artillery bastions. Nine towers, two bastions and a part of the precinct wall have been conserved. The Clock Tower became the symbol of the town.

The House With Stag called after stag head fixed to the corner of the building, is a construction specific to the Transylvanian Renaissance and dates from around the 17th century.

Other European master-works and old towns were rebuilt as they had been before they were destroyed such as The Cloth House in Brussels and the old town in Warsaw. We need to begin this process here not to correct war damage but to repair the ruination wreaked by local councils. (9)

A walk round Gloucester is a mixed blessing: some outstanding buildings of historic import are undermined by having repellent square blocks of concrete that pass for shops interspersed between them. I'm sure demolishing the hideous ones to restore the historic buildings would in turn restore the character and ambience of the city as a whole.

Newcastle seems chopped up. There is little harmony and balance left. This great city like Birmingham had people imprisoned for corruption in rebuilding their cities with buildings that have none of the qualities of grace, charm, grandeur of those they destroyed. A priority in Newcastle should be to rebuild Eldon Square that was demolished for a run-of-the-mill shopping centre.

In Europe grand and magnificent buildings are part of the identity and history but are also beneficial to the economy because they are also great tourist attractions. The primary motive is economic but the recreated buildings have a beneficial effect because it strengthens local community and identity. The local authorities in Coventry have realised that destroying this once beautiful medieval city for the temporary attraction of shopping malls was a mistake. Well, time to start rebuilding them. They did move several old buildings into one area called Spon Street but they need to restore many of the better ones to the rest of the city to give it some balance.

(1) http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/Corbu.html

(2) http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/60828/sec_id/60828

(3) http://www.amerika.org/globalism/return-to-beauty/

(4) http://www.trabel.com/gent/gent-townhall.htm

(5) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euston_railway_station

(6) http://www.e-architect.co.uk/london/st_pancras_station.htm

http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/lonpr-st-pancras-renaissance-london-hotel/

(7) http://www.vacance-roumanie.com/travel_Romania/sighisoara_Romania.html

(8) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tallinn

(9) http://www.stadtschloss-berlin.de/englisch.html