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This seminar will focus on some of the main issues surrounding the conservation of Victorian Exteriors, showing a wide example of works on a cross section of buildings - "great and grand", ecclesiastical, and the humbler secular or vernacular.

In particular, the speaker will examine what was important to the Victorian Builders and Architects, and therefore to the Victorian householder and his ethic. He will remind those of us whose job it is to care for the past and conserve it for the future, that ours is not to like or dislike, but to recognise what is good of its kind and what is bad, why so, and how to determine an appropriate repair strategy that respects the building and the tradition it was built in.

Victorian building took detailing to a level that is unprecedented before or since. The speaker will argue that any dilution of this level of detailing displays a fundamental misunderstanding of all that is important to Victorian designers and can be callous disrespect for a great tradition .

A rational and pragmatic approach may only be arrived at by learning to "listen" to the fabric of the building, and understanding what the building wants and why it needs it.

The speaker has a particular interest in aesthetics and will argue that all repairs must please visually and intellectually and perform functionally.

 

Speaker
Ian Constantinides, formerly of St Blaise