Architectural Conservation

In November 2015, I visited Birmingham as the course’s representative for the “Connection Day” of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation. Having arrived at 10:30, I had one hour before the start of the event and 3 hours after the event to explore the city.

I arrived at the New Street train station (see photo, below). The first station was constructed in 1854 and rebuilt in the 1960s. However, the present station is much more recent: it opened in September 2015. The most significant aspect of the station was its roof. It  has a fascinating impact on the visitors’ experience in my view.

New Street was decorated with Christmas lights and there were also lots of German style log cabins. They were offering German beers, chocolates and traditional clothes and gift wares. The festive atmosphere of the street was really impressive.

My first stop was at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, at the end of New Street. This huge building first opened in 1885 and is grade 2 listed . I am always impressed by the museums of this period… indeed, the residents of Birmingham are fortunate to have such an admirable museum in their city. 

The streetscape of Birmingham is so varied. As you are walking around, you can easily distinguish the different styles. And in spite of the differences, the unity of character between Georgian, Victorian and Modern buildings is fabulous.

St. Philip’s Cathedral seems to be one of the oldest buildings in the city centre. It was built in 1715. This Grade 1 listed building is one of the most impressive English Baroque buildings I have seen. Thomas Archer is the designer. It was interesting to find that the tower, the climax of the design, could not be completed due to economic reasons and was only added 10 years after the rest was built.

After this quick exploration, I headed for ‘The Old Joint Stock Pub and Theatre’, where the I.H.B.C. meeting was taking place. Built in 1862 and designed by J.A. Chatwin, this is a good example of Victorian Eclecticism – you can even observe some little Gothic touches in the upper windows. This grade 2 listed building was first designed as a library. However, it served as a bank some decades later. In 1997 it was finally converted into a pub. The theatre opened in 2006. This was one of best designed pubs I have ever seen.

After the meeting I continued my exploration of the city centre with a visit of the Methodist Central Hall, which seemed to me to be a bit neglected. Constructed as a church in 1902, it is now  a grade 2 listed building. Having remained empty for several years, it reopened as a nightclub in 2007!

This visit was both interesting and memorable. I always found that explorations like this one broaden one’s horizon. I was really grateful for that opportunity to both Dr. Nikolaos Karydis and the Institute of Historic Building Conservation.

 

 

That Canterbury Cathedral constitutes a fine example of Gothic and Romanesque architecture is widely known. What few people know is that this same building has been restored and partly rebuilt countless times, and, as a result, exemplifies various attitudes to conservation. In our last visit to this monument, we were accompanied by the head of Stone Conservation at the Cathedral, Ms. Heather Newton. Ms. Newton gave us a rare opportunity to explore “the unseen world” of the roof and the tallest tower, Bell Harry. The roof, mostly dating back to the Tudor period, has been divided to several rooms for fire protection. Its beams have been restored numerous times following the rotting of the original timbers. Circulation inside the roof was through a series of timber corridors, which offered access to the ceiling without loading the nave vaults below them.

The most challenging part of our visit was the ascent to the top of Bell Harry, the tower over the crossing. On the base of the tower, we found a sophisticated crack monitoring gauge and a humidity meter that records the micro-climate of the cathedral’s interior. After hundreds of steps, we reached a room where we found the pulley mechanism for the lifting of building materials. On the top of the tower, apart from the old bell mechanism, there is a microscopic meteorological station which is linked to a central computer inside the Cathedral. The highest point of the cathedral is exposed to the weather, and this has caused the decay of the limestone there. Unfortunately, as Ms. Newton explained,this decay seems to have been accelerated by “plastic repairs” carried out in the 1930s. These involved the use of cement mortar to fill cracks and to recapture the lost profiles of stone elements. This hard, impermeable mortar prevents the “breathing” of the wall and the evaporation of moisture. Trapped in the core of the wall, moisture accelerates stone decay caused by frost weathering and the crystallization of salts.

Zoi Kokkoni

On Monday, we attended a lecture on the Roman Forum by Professor David Watkin, one of the most important historians of our times. The “Foro Romano”, visited by millions every year, has had a fascinating and vivid building history from Antiquity to the Present. During this period, the forum was repeatedly modified, and as a result, distinguishing the dates of its buildings is not always easy. Temples that seem to be ancient were in fact erected just eighty years ago. For instance, the Temple of Vesta, in its present form, dates back to the 1930s (Watkin David, The Roman Forum, p.16).

Examining views of the forum, including the famous ones engraved by Piranesi, Watkin revealed the Roman monuments in all their grace and splendour, and traced their development from the Early Cristian Times to the Baroque period. The way in which churches were integrated into old roman edifices was absolutely astonishing. On the other hand, the Nineteenth Century idealized the “magnificent Roman ruins” at the expense of more recent buildings.

After a visit to the Forum it is easy to feel disorientated as you are trying to resolve a puzzle of multiple building phases that make the monuments comparable to palimpsests. Despite the archaeologists’ recent interventions to the site (considered to be “clumsy” by Watkin), the Roman Forum remains an ideal site to study Rome’s history and architecture as well as the development of conservation philosophy.

Zoi Kokkoni 11/2014

The new MSc in Architectural Conservation has started with a site visit to the historic centre of Canterbury, followed by lectures and seminars on Conservation Philosophy and Policy. The lecturers in the first term include Dr. Manolo Guerci, Dr Nikolaos Karydis, and Dr Timothy Brittain-Catlin. We have also enjoyed three guest lectures by Martin McKay, Conservation Officer, Medway City Council, who illustrated his lectures with many interesting examples from Medway. We very much look forward to the lectures of Prof. David Watkin and Nick Dermott (Conservation Officer, Margate Council) next week.