Donald Insall's contribution to building conservation in the last half century has been immense. This book explains how and why. Described in its subtitle as ‘philosophy, principles and practice’, it is the last of these which shines through the hundreds of places described and illustrated in the text; it is teaching by example rather than by precept. The examples range from the greatest buildings in the country, such as the Palace of Westminster and Trinity College, Cambridge, to streets of vernacular buildings in Thaxted or Chester.
The book is simply constructed, with four introductory sections: a brief personal autobiographical essay; emphasis on the way the Insall practice has developed as a team (though we are left in no doubt about who has been the leader); a piece called ‘Buildings are alive’, which shows how buildings develop a personality through their materials, the effects of time and weather and the people who have used and occupied them; and the way in which a building conservation project should be managed (p 67 has a box with ‘Ten conservation maxims’).
The ten maxims are followed by ten degrees of intervention and about half the book discusses these, ranging from day-to-day maintenance through major repair to rebuilding and new work. Though Insall is a life-long SPAB supporter, this is not a book which advocates the preservation of fabric at all cost. There are discussions of works at Chevening House, Kent, where significant demolitions were made in the interest of an architectural solution which would enable the house to have a continuing future, and Asgill House, Richmond, where restoration has produced an aesthetically pleasing return to a design which is a model of an eighteenth-century Thames-side villa. Not all of this relates to individual buildings. Insall was the author of one of the four town studies (Chester) promoted by government in 1966 before conservation areas were invented, and two of his rehabilitation case studies relate to major urban rescues – the early Georgian terraces in Great Ormond Street, Holborn, and the remarkable fifteenth-century cruck-framed Staircase House which is the key to Stockport market place.
Living Buildings has grown out of Insall's 1972 pioneer conservation manual, The Care of Old Buildings Today. It is not a new edition, more a review of a lifetime's experience of caring for historic buildings. In part it reads a bit like a practice brochure, with an appendix that sets out the services which the conservation architect offers to his client, and a list of awards. There are no footnotes or bibliography, though the book will be an indispensable addition to any conservation reading list; there is an index. Most of all it is a visual treat. There are more than 600 illustrations, of uniformly high quality and all of them placed to emphasize the text. Perhaps most illuminating are the drawings, many of them axonometrics by Insall's late colleague, Ailwyn Best. Not only are these often visually attractive but they help explain and understand buildings, the way they have grown, what are their problems and how these problems can be solved. The ‘analysis and report’ section on pp 68–75 is one of the most illuminating; it is the key step between the perception that a building (or an area) needs conservation and turning that perception into a programme of action. It is a step in the conservation process of which Insall is a master.
