The value of construction history to building refurbishment projects

by Michael Heaton

No one would start a car repair without a detailed understanding of the inner workings of the vehicle, preferably supplied by a manufacturer's repair manual. The same applies to historic buildings and especially legally protected buildings. Designing or commencing a refurbishment without a good understanding of what is likely to be encountered is like letting a colour-blind 11 year old re-wire a classic car: it will be out of action for much longer than anticipated and there will be disagreements, invariably involving third parties. Construction history is the equivalent of a repair manual, albeit the Haynes version in instalments: it provides detailed technical understanding of how the material fabric of specific types of historic buildings were put together, together with the contextual knowledge essential for a proper appreciation of the 'significance' of the affected fabric and the building as a whole, as required by Planning Policy Statement 5: Planning for the Historic Environment (PPS5). It is therefore of immediate benefit to designers, contractors and clients involved in refurbishment projects and the curatorial officers they will engage with when working on legally protected buildings.

Though not a familiar term in Britain, Construction History forms an integral part of most European first degree courses in architecture and structural engineering, with subject matter varying from country to country. The breadth of the subject is reflected in the annual journal Construction History and quarterly Newsletter of the UK-based Construction History Society (CHS) that, together with conference proceedings and a wide range of bespoke books and articles from around the world, present ongoing research into the history of the people, technology and skills that created our historic building stock and that underpin contemporary construction. Much of this material is being made available via the CHS website and the society can usually direct enquirers to material that isn't. The subject matter is very broad and international, ranging from the carpentry and philosophy of Japanese temple construction, through European 'stereometry' (construction of complex cut-stone vaults) to the history of the nail. The latter, though bordering on 'train spotter' territory, is more complex than might otherwise be thought, encompassing hand-wrought, machine-wrought, cut and wire forms manufactured from the Roman era to the late 19th century, with many of the technological developments occurring in France, Wales and north America in the last 400 years. Most of the historical research has been conducted in Australia. As one visitor to the CHS' exhibition stand put it: “Nails are the DNA of an historic building” and an understanding of their historical development can be a very useful intellectual tool in refurbishment projects affecting historic buildings.

The point is illustrated by a generalised example. Every architect and builder knows that all historic buildings have been modified throughout their histories, usually more frequently than received architectural histories or 'List' descriptions suggest. Generally speaking, the older fabric is the more 'significant' in terms of PPS5 and less easily modified, whilst the more recent fabric is more easy to justify modification of, but it is often impossible to ascribe definitive or even relative dates to carpentry and joinery without recourse to dendrochronology or C14 dating unless it incorporates complex jointing. This is particularly so in the case of the 17th – 19th century carpentry, which uses a lot of salvaged timber and few chronologically distinct joint types. The majority of historic buildings in Britain fall within that bracket, certainly most historic buildings in commercial use. However, a building modified throughout the 17th – 19th centuries will incorporate a range of nail types, each of which 'dates' the modification. If refurbishment requires modification, the fabric with the later nail types will generally raise fewer alarm bells with the conservation officer, especially if the designer can demonstrate a sound understanding of the historical development of nails.

Concrete construction is, perhaps, the other end of the technological spectrum. It's been used for a lot longer than many people think, especially in France and Germany, and is not nearly as monolithic as its appearance might suggest. Most of the technical developments from the middle of the 19th century were driven by contractors such as Lassells (UK), Monier and Hennebique (Fr) and each patented system has its own peculiarities that will affect its suitability for modification, whilst some examples are legally protected in their own right as exemplars of the technology. Knowing whether the concrete structure or detail is (a) historically important and/or (b) suitable for modification will be essential to the success of a refurbishment project affecting it.

Construction History is also concerned with the people responsible for these buildings. Whilst the personal histories of, for instance, I.K. Brunel or the medieval journeyman Villard de Honnencourt - whose sketchbook is the closest we're likely to get to an illustrated medieval construction manual - won't necessarily help in the repair of a 19th century railway arch or a cathedral, it can be comforting to learn that these 'giants' of history struggled with clients, contractors, untried methods and the weather, just as we do.

The subject is distinct from Architectural History in that it is concerned with how buildings and other such structures were designed, commissioned, constructed and modified, rather than with their appearance. Nonetheless, it overlaps with its better known cousin and, in Europe particularly, acts as an umbrella for a wide range of other disciplines, including engineering history, social and economic history, structural engineering, building conservation etc. as they are applied to the history of built structures. Such information and analysis will not be found in the 'List' description or on the internet, but in the growing corpus of 'Construction History' published by the CHS and its associated organisations around the world.

Michael Heaton is a professional archaeologist specialising in the analytical survey of historic buildings and a Trustee of the Construction History Society. His paper 'Building Palaeopathology: Practical applications of archaeological building analysis' (Structural Survey Vol 27 No2 (July
2009)) explains at greater length how an understanding of a building's construction history can help in the design and completion of a refurbishment of an historic building.

www.constructionhistory.co.uk
www.archaeology.demon.co.uk

Related NBS information:

Articles:

• Recycling our heritage
• The use of historic buildings as museums and art galleries
• How to specify: A century of works on building specification practice

Selected links:

• Architectural history

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