ChrWright
September 16th, 2009, 06:05 PM
This is a house very near one of my projects. You can see what work is being done:
http://wrightworks.net/images/IMG_0999.JPG
I'd like to pose a question to those craftsmen who work on old and historic houses:
At what point does restoration ruin the character of an old house?
One of the biggest challenges we all face is how to bring these glorious homes up to modern standards of comfort, safety, and convenience--without fundamentally changing their historic nature. The issue is even more complicated when it comes to repairs.
One of my favorites in the realm of architecture is John Ruskin (1819-1900). He was of the extreme opinion that any kind of "restoration" was ruin.
Two passages from his book, The Seven Lamps of Architecture:
'Neither by the public, nor by those who have the care of public monuments, is the true meaning of the word restoration understood. It means the most total destruction which a building can suffer: a destruction out of which no remnants can be gathered: a destruction accompanied with false description of the thing destroyed. Do not let us deceive ourselves in this important matter; it is impossible, as impossible as to raise the dead, to restore anything that has ever been great or beautiful in architecture.'
'Therefore when we build let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone. Let it be such Work as our descendants will thank us for and let us think as we lay Stone on Stone that a time is to come when those stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them and that men will say as they look upon the labor and the wrought substance of them, "See! This our fathers did for us." For, indeed, the greatest glory of a building is not in its stones, nor in its gold. Its glory is in its Age, and in that deep sense of voicefulness, of stern watching, or mysterious sympathy, nay, even of approval or condemnation, which we feel in walls that have long been washed by the passing waves of humanity. It is in their lasting witness against men, in their quiet contrast with the transitional character of all things, in the strength which, through the lapse of seasons and times, and the decline and birth of dynasties, and the changing face of the earth, and of the limits of the sea, maintains its sculptured shapeliness for a time insuperable, connects forgotten and following ages with each other, and half constitutes the identity, as it concentrates the sympathy, of nations: it is in that golden stain of time, that we are to look for the real light, and colour, and preciousness of architecture; and it is not until a building has assumed this character, till it has been entrusted with the fame, and hallowed by the deeds of men, till its walls have been witnesses of suffering, and its pillars rise out of the shadows of death, that its existence, more lasting as it is than that of the natural objects of the world around it, can be gifted with even so much as these possess, of language and of life.'
These houses need work. They need care. A fallen wall must be re-made, a crumbling foundation shored, and that which has been damaged must be made whole again.
But when does an update go too far?
http://wrightworks.net/images/IMG_0999.JPG
I'd like to pose a question to those craftsmen who work on old and historic houses:
At what point does restoration ruin the character of an old house?
One of the biggest challenges we all face is how to bring these glorious homes up to modern standards of comfort, safety, and convenience--without fundamentally changing their historic nature. The issue is even more complicated when it comes to repairs.
One of my favorites in the realm of architecture is John Ruskin (1819-1900). He was of the extreme opinion that any kind of "restoration" was ruin.
Two passages from his book, The Seven Lamps of Architecture:
'Neither by the public, nor by those who have the care of public monuments, is the true meaning of the word restoration understood. It means the most total destruction which a building can suffer: a destruction out of which no remnants can be gathered: a destruction accompanied with false description of the thing destroyed. Do not let us deceive ourselves in this important matter; it is impossible, as impossible as to raise the dead, to restore anything that has ever been great or beautiful in architecture.'
'Therefore when we build let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone. Let it be such Work as our descendants will thank us for and let us think as we lay Stone on Stone that a time is to come when those stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them and that men will say as they look upon the labor and the wrought substance of them, "See! This our fathers did for us." For, indeed, the greatest glory of a building is not in its stones, nor in its gold. Its glory is in its Age, and in that deep sense of voicefulness, of stern watching, or mysterious sympathy, nay, even of approval or condemnation, which we feel in walls that have long been washed by the passing waves of humanity. It is in their lasting witness against men, in their quiet contrast with the transitional character of all things, in the strength which, through the lapse of seasons and times, and the decline and birth of dynasties, and the changing face of the earth, and of the limits of the sea, maintains its sculptured shapeliness for a time insuperable, connects forgotten and following ages with each other, and half constitutes the identity, as it concentrates the sympathy, of nations: it is in that golden stain of time, that we are to look for the real light, and colour, and preciousness of architecture; and it is not until a building has assumed this character, till it has been entrusted with the fame, and hallowed by the deeds of men, till its walls have been witnesses of suffering, and its pillars rise out of the shadows of death, that its existence, more lasting as it is than that of the natural objects of the world around it, can be gifted with even so much as these possess, of language and of life.'
These houses need work. They need care. A fallen wall must be re-made, a crumbling foundation shored, and that which has been damaged must be made whole again.
But when does an update go too far?