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New Ideas for Old Places

Speaker: Dr Steven Parissien, The Prince’s Foundation

The Misuse of History: Interpreting the Past for the Future

The distinction between what is genuinely old, and what has been recently added or manufactured, has been worrying many since William Morris’s day. What is deemed ‘authentic’ changes with the period and with the social context. In conserving or restoring old properties, what is ‘correct’ and what is damaging? When can alterations be regarded as a valid part of the building’s history, and when are they simply intrusive eyesores?

Today, too many suppliers, professionals and organisations involved with the historic built environment tend to be economical with the truth, generating myths which are soon taken for fact. ‘Heritage’ terminology is used and abused to help sell products and materials sold to owners of old homes, creating a confusion in the mind of the consumer as to what has genuine historic precedence and fashioning a fundamentally dishonest ‘new orthodoxy’, a creed which is all too eagerly accepted by homeowners anxious for advice and guidance. Whether it’s a small detail such as sash horns, or the interpretation of a whole historic site, those who want to make a fast buck out of our built heritage will inevitably make something out of nothing.

This lecture explores how we can restore, repair and redecorate our homes in a manner which respects the past but also puts domestic refurbishment firmly in the contemporary contexts of sustainability and reversibility.