Contemporary Architecture in the Historic Environment

CHAPTER 3
Design Approaches and Philosophies
Adam, Robert, and Matthew Hardy, eds. 2008. Tradition Today: Continuity in
Architecture and Society. Southampton, England: WIT Press.
This book is a collection of essays on the meaning of tradition in modern society.
It was prepared after the inaugural conference of the International Network
for Traditional Building, Architecture and Urbanism (INTBAU) in 2002. The
book is broadly concerned with the concept of tradition in buildings and urbanism
and discusses the rejection of tradition in the 20th century by modernism.
The authors of the essays propose that tradition can be integrated into modern
society and that there are a number of benefits that arise when communities
reengage with tradition. Cultural traditions, such as craftsmanship and architecture,
can adapt and change and are key to the transmission of culture. The
INTBAU Charter recognizes that through tradition, a sense of character and
identity is preserved. The authors do not specifically discuss new architectural
insertions in historic environments but outline concepts of tradition and continuity—and
how these concepts can be integrated rather than rejected—in current
conservation approaches and in the built environment. (L.M.)
Alderson, Caroline R. 2006. Responding to context: Changing perspectives on
appropriate change in historic settings. APT Bulletin 37 (4): 22–33.
This article analyzes the history of interventions in historic environments and
identifies a shift in the approach to designing new buildings in historic contexts
and additions to historic structures. This shift consists of a gradual move toward
a more abstract interpretation of context characteristics and is believed to have
been caused by the preservation community’s acknowledgment that a highquality
design that does not mimic the extant historic style could add value to a
historic site without harming its values and character-defining elements. The
author explains that this contemporary design approach builds on the accumulation
of historical layers in a cityscape. This new approach ensures that new
buildings have a design quality that may help grant it a historic property status
in the future. The article gives examples of different infill projects where each
case was best solved by a different degree of abstraction in its response to the
context. The examples attempt to achieve a balance between respecting the
characteristics of the historic site and expressing contemporary architecture
ideas. (A.P.A.G.)
Also relevant for Chapter 4: Case Studies.
39
Contemporary Architecture in the Historic Environment: An Annotated Bibliography - Getty Conservation Institute - 2015