BY NICK RUSSELL: A REPLY TO 'RESTORATION VERSUS REHABILITATION': I confess:  when we bought our little house in James Bay in 1998, it was covered in asbestos shingles, and we took them off.  And several graceful sash-windows had been modernized with aluminum picture windows, so we replaced them.  Did we hesitate?  Not for a nanosecond!  Our neighbours were delighted, and we were proud to receive two heritage awards. But...
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Sad but true, so much of what passes for heritage conservation in British Columbia today is far closer to the theories and practice of the nineteenth century French architect and theorist, Eugene-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (1814–1879), than it is to the much more conservative approaches of John Ruskin or William Morris.  Values-based management is still so poorly understood.  Values of architectural history, particularly stylistic purity...
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Poet, artist, art and architectural critic, social reformer, socialist and Oxford don, John Ruskin (1819 to 1900) was one of those boundless Victorian Renaissance men with a stunning output of work.  He is considered by many to have been the most influential writer on the development of Victorian architecture, certainly within the English-speaking world.  Part of his writings include his theories of architectural conservation, which have...
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