Chester Cathedral Solar Panels, 2023, and St. Botolph’s Curch, Skidbrooke, 2024. Images used with permission from Chester Cathedral and Donald Insall Associates respectively.
Description:
What should be the dialogue between architects and architectural historians at a moment which has seen large-scale development and redevelopment globally while realising the full extent of the climate crisis? What is the future of our shared architectural heritage that can respond to the urgency of environmental change and cultural repositioning? We know the situation demands professions to learn from each other and to work together to frame debates about architectural conservation in the Anthropocene. In reflection of the occasion that 2025 will be the 50th anniversary of the European Charter of the Architectural Heritage, we have set the theme - 'a conversation about the shape of buildings to come' - to address the challenges of future heritage.
Today we are looking at a different type of change, one necessitated by the climate crisis, an aftermath of the Industrial Revolution. Aware that historians of the future would not be looking at our period of architecture in the same light as we at the Victorians, the need for us to learn to be more frugal with our building materials may be a counterpoint to the value of abundance of the Victorian era. We need to pick technologies and materials which best preserve our planet, to unlearn the graph which led us to disposables, and to re-learn how to reuse, repurpose, and generate energy more efficiently and sustainably. In the process, we need also to preserve our built heritage and understand its value and significance.
Inviting input from our guest speakers through their diverse expertise, experience and perspectives, as well as with our audience, we ask further: how can architects and architectural historians, between tasks of being chroniclers, designers, analysts, constructors and commentators, find ways to collaboratively rethink heritage and conservation practices while addressing challenges brought on by these large-scale changes and implications in buildings, resources, energies, policies, laws and environments?
Convened and chaired by:
Tanvir Hasan (Director Emeritus at Donald Insall Associates, Trustee of the SAHGB)
With guest speakers:
Tom Foxall (Regional Director, London & SE, Historic England)
Niall McLaughlin (Niall McLaughlin Architects, Professor of Architectural Practice, UCL)
Ingrid Schroder (Director, Architectural Association School of Architecture)
Amin Taha (Amin Taha Architects + Groupwork)
Tickets are priced at £10 for SAHGB members, £20 for non-members, and £5 for students.
Please contact the SAHGB Administrator at info@sahgb.org.uk with any questions.
