Philosophy of House Preservation

Some philosophical thoughts on preserving old houses

John Ruskin, in his The Seven Lamps of Architecture sets out a case for the preservation of old buildings. William Morris took Ruskin's sentiments and turned them into a manifesto that provided the founding principles of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) and is still in force today - see SPAB's Manifesto.

Ruskin and Morris took the view that buildings that should be preserved primarily have historic or aesthetic merit (duly weighted for rarity value), and are not likely to have been built later than the end of the 17th century (after which time little of merit was built, in their view - presumably excepting Morris's Red House, etc.). This sentiment was taken on board and forms the basis of our listed buildings system, and today something like 400,000 buildings are listed. Over time, the buildings subject to listing have become more modern so that today in rare instances even fairly new buildings have been listed. Nevertheless, the principle remains - buildings worth saving must have some special merit that makes them stand out from others of their age.

A relatively recent nuance to this approach is to make whole areas of the built environment subject to preservation and development restrictions, where the whole area has particular merit even though some of the buildings may be mundane.

Given that there are over 6 million houses in the UK built before 1900, and many built since which are also of interest, it is clear that the approach derived from Ruskin and Morris excludes the large majority of the buildings that many of us value and that define the character of many of our towns and cities. The consequence is that we are losing far too many old buildings, and destroying whole areas of our towns and cities. We allow in-fill development, destroying the character of areas. We allow the demolition of interesting, characterful houses which suit human habitation admirably (decent-sized rooms, substantially-built, decent-sized gardens, and so on) for replacement with flats and inferior houses with minscule rooms and gardens. And we even allow demolition of whole areas of perfectly good houses that, with proper care, could have lasted indefinitely - to be replaced with flimsy houses and flats that will not last as long as the buildings they replaced could have lasted for.

So can we make a case for preserving a much larger proportion of these houses? Ruskin and Morris made a case for preserving some old buildings based on their value to us and also on the view that we should respect the craftmanship and skill of past masters and preserve it for future generations. Neither of these ways of valuing old buildings works for the vast majority of old buildings. So can we make a case for many more old buildings having value?

One approach would be to say that old buildings have value in themselves and therefore have a right to proper consideration in any decisions we may make about preservation or development. Once upon a time it was thought that only humans had value (because they were made in the image of God). Recently, in ethics, there have been attempts to extend the inherent value concept to animals and in fact all living things, on the basis that the reason we value humans is because they are ends in themselves (an idea derived from Aristotle) and not because they are made in God's image. Things that are ends in themselves have a basic in-built objective to flourish - to live and develop in the way that they are designed to live and develop. Thwarting this flourishing is ethically wrong unless there is an over-riding ethical requirement to thwart flourishing for some other reason.

This idea could be further extended from living things to inanimate things, including houses. In this case, houses could have the right to flourish - to continue, and to continue as far as possible in their original form or in forms sympathetic to that original form. This right to flourish could only be over-ridden by stronger ethical (ie not financial) considerations, or by the house having reached its natural end (ie is no longer capable of being continued in its original form or something like it owing to the depredations of time).

Karl Marx also had a theory of value that may be applicable to buildings - the idea that man-made objects are crystallised human effort (his labour theory of value). On this view in some way and to some degree the original builder of a building retains ownership rights, or at least the right to due consideration for the labour he/she put into the buildingAnd therefore, there is a presumption of continuing the existence of the building in its original form or something like it as originally intended by those who laboured on it, unless other over-riding considerations come into play.

Moving from arguments for the inherent value of old buildings, there are arguments to do with the obligations we owe to past and future generations as well as current generations (see Derek Parfit's Reasons and Persons for extensive consideration of these obligations) which require consideration. Obligations towards past generations would include, for example, the obligation to take due account of their intentions and achievements, and the legacy they wished to pass on to us. This would clearly include the houses they designed and built. Ruskin clearly had this sentiment in mind, but restricted their application, on the past generations side, to  those involved in building buildings of aesthetic or historical merit. By extending them to all the activities of past generations, we can encompass all buildings.

Obligations towards future generations would include the obligation to preserve what has been handed down to us so that future generations can benefit what we benefit from in terms of the quality of life, and the connection to the past, given us by the houses built by past generations. (Our obligation to future generations would also include the obligation to build new houses that are well-built, tailored for the needs of humans rather than profit margins, and aesthetically are of merit - we clearly fall short here just as much as in our lack of due consideration for the preservation of old buildings.)

Given that neither past or future generations can have their say, it is all the more important that we specifically take them into account.

It could be argued that future generations will benefit from demolition of old houses and replacement with newer, better insulated houses to reduce global warming. What is often not considered, though, is the energy used by the demolition and removal of the old building and the building of the new one. Old buildings can be insulated, have new boilers fitted and so on; they also trap carbon dioxide in the extensive amount of wood used in their structures - this carbon dioxide is released as the wood decays in landfill after demolition. Further, new houses are made with substantial amounts of energy-hungry materials such as concrete.

There is also an argument based on the interests of the current generation. Settled communities of characterful houses communicating a sense of place, history and community are of great value to people who live in them. And characterful houses are often a great source of pleasure to those who live in them. But too often it seems that the desire to profit from development, or the desire to appear "modern" outweighs the concerns of the local community. We should do more to counterbalance the commercial considerations with the long-term interests of local communities.

This is not the place here to evaluate these arguments, but all of them offer a good starting point for expanding our concerns from just the 400,000 houses preserved because of the Ruskin/Morris perspective, to a concern for the preservation of a much greater percentage of the 6 million or so old houses in the UK.

Some philosophical thoughts on how we should preserve old houses

John Ruskin and William Morris was very forthright on the subject of restoration - taking the view that we should preserve rather than restore or replace. In other words: we should leave well alone unless there is a good reason to intervene; we should carry out regular preventive maintenance to stop problems developing; we should not try to have a "perfect" building that does not show its age - signs of age are perfectly acceptable; we should live with the peculiarities of an old building rather than try to make the building like a new one; we should not renovate unless absolutely necessary; we should repair rather than replace; we should not try to take the building back to some point in its past and recreate an idealised look; and we should not make new repairs or work look like old. See John Ruskin's Aphorism 31 in The Seven Lamps of Architecture for Ruskin's own statement of his position on restoration versus preservation.

In other words, old buildings should look old and should be preserved rather than turned into a pastiche or destroyed through modernisation. Morris's these views provide very sound advice for buildings of high aesthetic or historic merit as well as more mundane buildings. These nostrums are particularly important to bear in mind when faced with the hard sales tactics of damp-proofing, rot-treating, uPVC double glazing and all the other "specialists" in the building industry trying to take large amounts of money off you while spoiling your house at the same time. If you must make modifications to your house, keep them to a minimum, make sure they are superficial and reversible where possible (ie feel free to go wild with paint, but not with knocking walls down), and make it obvious what is new and what is old. Keeping a record of the changes you have made (perhaps on a site like this) will also enable people in the future to make more sense of the building.

So where's the philosophical perspective in this. While Morris may have been too narrow in the range of buildings he valued, he did work out very well the ramifications of placing a high value on old buildings and the people who created them in terms of how we should treat them.

Whether we place a value on the building itself, or on the worth of a building from the perspective of past, current or future generations, they all point to the same approach. We should value the buildings for what they are - ie let them be themselves - rather than trying to change them into something else, whether that something else be a pastiche or a modernisation. And we should intervene little and often to ensure that they can live out their natural lives to the fullest extent while preserving the aims and intentions of those who designed and built them.

This, of course, goes totally against the current fashion for the treatment of old houses. On the one hand we have the fashion for taking houses back to an idealised past, with fake old features and furnishings. On the other, we have the fashion for minimalist, modern interiors with lots of walls removed to allow large internal spaces and the destruction of all the original features. Both fashions oppose the view that buildings have value and should be allowed to develop naturally over their lives.

It is worth pointing out that minimal intervention and nursing the building along its natural lifespan is hugely cheaper as well as being more respectful of the building and those who created it.

Link of interest:

John Ruskin's Aphorism 31