Conservation & Change

Managing

Menu: • What is a Church? • Monuments & Living Buildings • Tradition • Telling your Story

Feedback Please!

Nigel Walter 13 June 2018

nw@archangelic.com

‘In a higher world it is otherwise, ‘In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, ,

and to be perfect and to be perfect is to have changed often.’

John Henry Newman

Change

ManagingManaging(to avoid)ManagingManaging

?

What is a Church? The “Incompatibles”

“To the incumbent the church is a workshop; to the antiquary it is a relic. To the parish it is a utility; to the outsider a luxury. How to unite these incompatibles?” How to unite these incompatibles?”

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy Memories of Church Restoration (1906) (1906)

Who gets Who gets to decide

what matters?

[And how does [And how does ‘stuff’ matter ‘stuff’ matter

anyway?]“If the ruinous church could be enclosed in a “If the ruinous church could be enclosed in a

crystal palace... and a new church be built crystal palace... and a new church be built alongside for services... the method would alongside for services... the method would

be an ideal one.” be an ideal one.” Thomas Hardy (1906)Thomas Hardy (1906)Preservation

Monuments & Living Buildings

Imagine an unfinished novel in eight chapters, !and our task is to write the ninth. !We need to:!" fully understand the story to date, !

"write a creative chapter in this generation, !

" and leave plot lines open for those we know will follow.

Inter-generational Communal

Ongoing Narratives

Monuments & Living Buildings Monuments & Living Buildings History is not the past – it is the method we have evolved of

organising our ignorance of the past. It’s the plan of the positions taken,

when we stop the dance to note them down.

It’s what’s left in the sieve when the centuries have run through it.

It is no more “the past” than a birth certificate is a birth,

or a script is a or a script is a performance, or a map is a journey.

Hilary Mantel

Inter-generational

#We shape our buildings, We shape our buildings, We shape our buildings, and afterwardsour buildings shape us.our buildings shape us.$

Winston Churchill

‘balanced heritage’

(our relationship with the past)

‘The Invention of the Historic Monument’

Françoise Choay, 2001

...tradition is only democracy extended through time... It is the democracy of the dead. G K Chesterton

In a tradition this process of fusion is continually going on, for there old and new

are always combining into something of living value, without either being

explicitly foregrounded from the other. Hans-Georg Gadamer

Tradition is like giving birth,not like wearing your father’s hat.

Pablo Picasso

Tradition

Richard Hooker’s Richard Hooker’s Three-Legged Stool: • Scripture • Reason • Tradition

... It is the democracy of the dead. Communion of Saints

Telling your story…

As a living community, you will always be on a journey. Your Statement of Needs (‘SoN') articulates your sense of direction, telling the narrative of direction, telling the narrative of the community to date, and sketching the outline of the next chapters in the story.

4. Telling your Story

As your project progresses, the internal dialogue from which it started will widen. There are two key documents that frame that wider dialogue, and in large part determine the outcome…

To change a historic building well To change a historic building well you need to do your homework;

this becomes your Statement of Signficance ('SoS').

Good homework does not guarantee success, but a lack of it

almost guarantees failure. Show that you care!

‘Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you

to give the reason for the hope that you have.'

1 Peter 3:15

The SoS describes the story of the building to

date, how it was formed by community.

The SoN tells the story of the community formed around that building, and where that community is heading.

Significance(Homework)

Needs(Direction)

As a living community, you will always be on a journey. Your Statement of Needsarticulates your sense of direction, telling the narrative of direction, telling the narrative of the community to date, and sketching the outline of the next chapters in the story.

To change a historic building well To change a historic building well you need to do your homework;

this becomes your ('SoS').

Good homework does not guarantee success, but a lack of it

almost guarantees failure. Show that you care!

describes the story of the building to

date, how it was

The community that building, and where that

These are working

documents that !

will go through multiple

iterations

this becomes your that will go

As a living community, you will always be on a journey. Your Statement of Needs (‘SoN') (‘SoN') (‘SoN') (‘SoN')

Needs(Direction) BfM

D6To change a historic building well To change a historic building well

you need to do your homework; this becomes your

Statement of Signficance

Significance(Homework)BfM

D2

Try this useful tool for writing an SoS: www.statementsofsignificance.org.uk

two key documents:

A church’s expertise in community is indispensable to the health of the building.

Thank you

Nigel Walter!

www.churchbuild.co.uk!www.archangelic.co.uk

‘In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change,

and to be perfect is to have changed often.’

John Henry Newman

What do we mean by Continuity?