Review 2017 Contents Foreword On Architecture and Memory 2 Tony Barton, Chairman Obscurity vs. Patronage: The Power of Architecture 7 Nurturing Nature: Restoring the Temperate House at Kew 11 The (Other) Baths of Bath 14 New Place, New Life 17 Remembering Joseph Paxton at London Road Cemetery, Coventry 21 Curating the Past: Repair and Conservation at Brodsworth Hall 23 Chesterton Mill, Cambridge 25 50 Years of Conservation Areas 26 Welcome to the annual Review, summarising what we have Aliza Ross (1984 – 2016) 27 achieved in the past 12 months, compellingly woven into the News in Brief 28 theme of “Memory” by this year’s editors Hannah Parham and Renée O’Drobinak. Twelve months pass so quickly and Donald Insall Associates continues to build on the legacy of our past, with its customary creative energy, passion and analytical vigour; we look forward to celebrating our 60th Anniversary in 2018. We work hard to maintain a continuity of approach, even in changing times, learning from our collective experience and particularly from our pioneering colleagues of the early days of our Practice. For me, researching the 50th anniversary of the Civic Amenities Act in 1967 has revealed just how young the conservation movement is and how central in debate, influence and philosophy was Donald Insall Associates. It is pleasing to look back on a year and reflect that the quality of our work continues to shine through and that we continue to grow and develop. The Insall name is now also established in the great cities of Birmingham and Manchester; a personal highlight has been to see our teams taking root in both wonderful places. Equally thrilling has been the development of our Employee Ownership concept. The Practice has been a pioneer of employee ownership, as well as conservation. We continue to grow in this respect and found ourselves on the shortlist for this year’s Architects' Journal “Employer of the Year”. I hope you enjoy this Review and see that we remember our past whilst confidently looking to our future. Editors Front cover image: All images in this Hannah Parham The cast stone corbels publication are copyrighted Renée O’Drobinak affixed to the structural to Donald Insall Associates piers prior to their repair at unless otherwise stated. Graphic Designer Temperate House, Royal Renée O’Drobinak Botanic Gardens, Kew. © Donald Insall Associates 2017 © Thomas Erskine UK-000193 On this page: Donald Insall Associates Christmas Party 2016 © Damian Griffiths 1 On Architecture and Memory Hannah Parham Above: Donald Insall Associates's work encompasses different philisophies of conservation from the 'stitch in time' repair approach advocated by William Morris, pictured, to full restoration. / Alamy Left: A gilder from Hare & Humphreys preparing the surface for gilding of the James Gibbs' Octagon Room ceiling, Orleans House. Photo © Thomas Erskine emory has become something of a buzzword. It It is … no question of expediency or feeling conservation area designation when he formulated That Every Place May Be ‘Truly More Itself’ was the theme of this year’s London Festival of whether we shall preserve the buildings of past his principles. It is interesting to muse on what he Donald Insall Associates, founded in 1958, has Architecture, and the winners of the Society for the times or not. We have no right whatever to touch might have made of the regeneration of Covent M been at the forefront of building conservation for Protection of Ancient Buildings’ Philip Webb Award them. They are not ours. They belong partly Garden when the flower market closed, or the post- nearly sixty years, and our work encompasses for 2016 presented their work at an event entitled to those who built them, and partly to all the fire restorations of Uppark or of Windsor Castle, or many of these subtly different sets of principles. To ‘Place and Memory’. It is no longer just conservation generations of mankind who are to follow us. The the adaptation of St Pancras Station for the arrival of maintain our pre-eminence in the field, the practice architects who delight in evidence of a building’s dead have still their right in them: that which they Eurostar. He would certainly have baulked at listing has recently held a series of debates and seminars historical use and adaptation. When the glossiest laboured for … we have no right to obliterate. What the works of George Gilbert Scott. His dislike of exploring our philosophy from the perspective of of modern architects and the SPAB begin speaking we have ourselves built, we are at liberty to throw Scott notwithstanding, the Manifesto was catholic a new generation of conservation architects and the same language, something must be afoot. But down; but what other men gave their strength and in its celebration of ‘anything which can be looked advisers. What has emerged most powerfully is that for Donald Insall Associates the art of repairing, wealth and life to accomplish, their right over does on as artistic, picturesque, historical, antique, or all our projects are underpinned by the governing restoring or designing anew, while conserving the not pass away with their death; still less is the right substantial’. In this Morris was strikingly prescient motivation that, through our work, every place may intangible qualities of historic places, has been at to the use of what they have left vested in us only. and the definition of what constitutes ‘heritage’ be ‘truly more itself’. the heart of our philosophy for decades. It belongs to all their successors. continues to grow ever wider. This year, Donald Insall Associates was pleased to With the expansion of what is protected, the degrees The SPAB Manifesto, drafted by William Morris be one of six shortlisted teams in the National Trust’s Philosophies of Conservation of preservation and of permissible change have in 1877, developed Ruskin’s ideas into a set of International Design Competition for Clandon Park become more refined. Morris’ exhortation to ‘raise An appreciation of the way in which buildings conservation principles, encouraging regular in Surrey. This Palladian mansion, built to designs another building rather than alter or enlarge the old convey memory was at the root of the conservation maintenance and careful repair but eschewing the by Giacomo Leoni from 1730, was devastated by th one’ cannot always be answered, especially in a movement in the 19 century. For John Ruskin, restoration or adaptation of historic buildings to a fire in 2015, resulting in substantial damage to world of diminishing natural resources. Conservation memory was one of the Seven Lamps of meet changing needs. Architects, he urged, should its interior including the celebrated Marble Hall. practices have developed in response to these Architecture. In this architectural treatise of 1849, a appreciate the romance of the ruin and preserve Our entry – which has been devised in partnership challenges, for example through the Venice Charter chapter was dedicated to ‘The Lamp of Memory’ and each successive layer of history. The approach has with New York-based practice Diller Scofidio + of 1964 and the Burra Charter of 2007; these present in it Ruskin set out the philosophical justification for saved countless medieval churches, cathedrals and Renfro – proposes the restoration of its principal an increasingly systematic approach to analysing preserving historic buildings: secular buildings from insensitive alteration. Yet historic rooms, combined with contemporary significance and managing change, introducing Morris could not have envisaged the great numbers interventions into the more damaged areas of internationally recognised standards of conservation. of buildings now listed or protected through 2 3 Left: Country houses are a fundamental part of our collective memory. The fire damaged Marble Hall, Clandon Park. Photo © National Trust / James Dobson Below: A watercolour of Wentworth Woodhouse by Sir Donald Insall. lesser interest on the upper floors. The fire, caused Review 2017 capacity of architecture to speak to posterity. In the in the world. Finally, Tony Barton reflects on our own by a faulty electrical distribution board, showed 1930s, the artist Rex Whistler deployed the power of institutional memory at Donald Insall Associates as The articles presented in this Review explore that the notion that anything can be ‘preserved in painting to the same end, capturing the owners of Plas we join the celebration of 50 years of conservation the theme of architecture and memory in light of aspic’ – as the conservation movement is often Newydd in Anglesey in an extraordinary set of trompe areas, a piece of legislation that reflects many of the the places in which the Practice has worked this mischaracterised as desiring – is near impossible l’oeil murals in the principal rooms of the house. This principles established by Donald Insall’s pioneering year. In some projects, memories of the past were to achieve in practice; stuff happens, history never very personal testimony, described by Matt Osmont, work in Chester in the 1960s. harnessed to build support for repair and renewal. stands still. I believe our approach at Clandon, if we has now become part of our collective memory of At Brodsworth Hall, for example, the complaints are successful, would illustrate the ways in which life in a country house. Whistler’s story is said to of former servants about the malfunctioning roller History Matters careful conservation and dynamic new design are have inspired Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, shutters in this Yorkshire country house, recorded not opposites, but can be part of the same creative a major influence on modern perceptions of pre-War Donald Insall Associates is uniquely placed to work on in an oral history project, resonated with today’s process. This fits perfectly within the Palladian ideal life in an English stately home, and Plas Newydd is buildings with complex layers of history and meaning.