{"id":42174,"date":"2022-04-17T10:46:21","date_gmt":"2022-04-17T07:46:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/architecturallife.com\/?p=42174"},"modified":"2022-04-17T10:46:21","modified_gmt":"2022-04-17T07:46:21","slug":"heritage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sribno.com\/architecturallife\/heritage\/","title":{"rendered":"Heritage"},"content":{"rendered":"

The way we have looked at historical buildings has changed greatly over the past 150 years. From being all but ignored by the authorities, historic architecture became a central part of our \u201cheritage\u201d in a movement that led to much more rigorous preservation, but which was also sometimes connected to a false or nostalgic view of the past.<\/p>\n

Organizations such as the SPAB (see Conservation) did ground-breaking work, showing the best ways to repair and maintain old buildings. But these were voluntary organizations\u2014it was still up to owners to carry works out in the best way. Not all of them did this, and throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries many important old buildings in Britain and in other countries were demolished.<\/p>\n

Protection by law<\/h3>\n

One solution was to introduce legal protection for important monuments or buildings. Greece was a pioneer in this area. The country was the first to pass a law to protect ancient monuments, in 1834. The Danes followed suit and, in the 19th century, Germany, Holland, Italy, Sweden and the USA also started to bring in legislation to protect important historical structures. France, too, long after Victor Hugo\u2019s cry to \u201cstill the hammer that is mutilating the face of the country,\u201d passed a Historical Monuments Act in 1887.<\/p>\n

Britain as well acquired an Ancient Monuments Act in the 1880s. Its remit, however, was quite restricted\u2014to such monuments as earthworks, burial mounds, stone circles, and ruined abbeys.<\/p>\n

Under threat<\/h3>\n

In 1893 Britain responded to appeals to preserve and protect both ancient buildings and natural scenery through another voluntary body\u2014the National Trust. Set up to acquire and maintain \u201cplaces of interest or beauty,\u201d it concentrated at first on landscape and scenery, but later acquired many historic buildings and showed the way to similar organizations in other parts of the world.<\/p>\n

Heritage and war<\/h3>\n

Meanwhile the huge economic changes in the early 20th century had a profound impact on old buildings. After the First World War, the owners of many historic houses could no longer afford to run them, and hundreds were demolished. By the eve of the Second World War, however, many were mourning the loss of those buildings, and regretting that much of Britain\u2019s architectural heritage had been thrown away.<\/p>\n

The term \u201cheritage\u201d began to become widespread at this time and, when war came, people saw themselves as defending from further destruction the historical birthright of Britain. Heritage became key to national identity\u2014a fact that was highlighted in books such as the \u201cFace of Britain\u201d (on regions of Britain) and \u201cBritish Heritage\u201d series published by Batsford. Other publications, such as the Shell Guides to English counties, did more to present heritage to a wider public.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe notion of \u2018heritage\u2019 has been broadened and indeed transformed to take in not only the ivied church and village green but also the terraced street, the railway cottages, the covered market and even the city slum \u2026\u201d Raphael Samuel, Theatres of Memory<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Listing buildings<\/h3>\n

Wartime also saw the birth of Britain\u2019s building listing system, in which historic buildings are graded, listed and protected by law. The system did not come soon enough to save yet more country houses demolished in the 1950s, but has since provided an effective way of protecting historic and architecturally important buildings. The growth of still more voluntary groups\u2014local civic societies and national specialist groups, such as the Georgian Group and Victorian Society, for example\u2014did more for the cause of old buildings. English Heritage, the government quango set up both to advise government on conservation matters and act as custodian of many state-owned sites, made a major contribution, too.<\/p>\n

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Listed buildings<\/h4>\n

In 1940s Britain buildings inspectors set out to make the first lists of the country\u2019s important and historic buildings. So that they knew which structures to list for protection, they followed a series of guidelines about the types of buildings that were of interest.<\/p>\n