Critical Built Heritage Practice and Conservation - Evolving Perspectives supports an alternative point of departure for engaging with the historic built environment, by critically questioning the legitimacy of dominant conservation concepts and methods that are often taken for granted within building conservation, architecture, and adaptive reuse.
The meaning of heritage is changing. From pastness to presentness, from preservation to participation, and from tangible to intangible, heritage is increasingly understood as a dynamic, social, and intangible process across many disciplines. Consequently, the role and remit of the built heritage practitioner – and in particular the architectural conservationist – is becoming progressively complex and in need of a critical gaze. Is restoration really a falsehood from beginning to end? Should the condition of existing materials determine the conservation method? Is authenticity really an inherent quality within old buildings? By engaging with a critical interpretation of heritage, this book makes space for practitioners to consider the evolution of their own role within a rapidly changing context of built heritage practice. Reinforced by a shift in emphasis from materials to meanings, a ‘socio-material outlook’ is proposed which champions an enhanced focus on intangible heritage within the built heritage sector, whilst still acknowledging the physical condition of old buildings is a priority for many stakeholders.
This book has been written with practitioners, students, and educators of architectural conservation in mind – although will also be of relevance to the broader built heritage industry; as well as academics, researchers, and heritage students with a passion for contemporary dialogues in heritage studies.
Table of Contents:
List of figures
List of tables
List of acronyms
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Introduction: appraising norms of practice
Part I: from materials to meanings
Chapter 1 – antiquity and anxiety
Chapter 2 – the postmodern heritage turn
Chapter 3 – evolving perspectives on authenticity
Part II: towards an intangible outlook
Chapter 4 – immaterial manifestations of culture
Chapter 5 – immateriality and change in policy and guidance
Chapter 6 – deconstructing communal value
Chapter 7 – symbolism and spirituality
Part III: architectural conservation as future-oriented practice
Chapter 8 – building conservation as memory-making practice
Chapter 9 – participatory problems
Chapter 10 – a socio-material outlook
Concluding remarks: heritage futures and the role of the architectural conservationist
Index
About the Author :
Johnathan Djabarouti is a registered architect (ARB), accredited conservation professional (IHBC) and Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). Following nearly a decade in professional practice working on both new and old buildings in historic contexts, he is currently Senior Lecturer in Architecture at the Manchester School of Architecture (MSA), UK. In 2018 he received AHRC funding for his PhD project titled The impact of intangible heritage on architectural and building conservation practices in the UK: a socio-material outlook. He has been an Academy Panellist on the RIBA Advanced Conservation Course since 2022 where he teaches delegates about intangible heritage and its relationship to heritage buildings, and in 2023 he secured an AHRC Innovation Scholars Secondment grant to Historic England for his project Intangible heritage and design in historic contexts. His research on the intersections between the conservation/adaptation of built heritage and critical heritage theory have been published and presented widely.
Review :
The understanding of heritage has evolved to encompass a complexity of interwoven tangible and intangible aspects. This erudite, accessible book unpacks the subject to create an authoritative and compelling guide to one of the most important issues of the 21st century.
Sally Stone, Reader in Adaptive Reuse, Manchester School Architecture
Djabarouti successfully brings Critical Heritage Theory into meaningful dialogue with conservation practice. The result is a major contribution to integrating these key (but all too often disparate) approaches. This important book is a future classic in the making.
Dr Nigel Walter, Conservation Architect, author of Narrative Theory in Conservation
