BIOS Reporter – Volume 4, No.4 – October 1980

Conservation is a growing preoccupation of Western Society. Two hundred years ago antiquaries pottered around the survivals of former ages with a detached enthusiasm which was regarded as merely quaint by many contemporaries. When engaging upon investigations, they not infrequently destroyed or marred the object of their study. A century later polemics began to replace curiosity. Survivals were not merely survivals – they were a vital part of our inheritance from the Past, and in that sense, an aspect of the Present. William Morris and his friends protested vigorously against the abuse of old buildings by ill-informed and insensitive architects and planners. Today, their descendants ca;. point with pride to the emergence of Conservation as a science, and a largely respectable science at that. The attempts to restore old buildings rot just in the spirit of the original but using the same materials and techniques as the first builders is eloquent testimony to the success of the movement. In the more responsible circles, restoration of an old building without first consulting all available documentary sources and making detailed studies of the building and related types is unthinkable…