古い建物を誠実に修復することについてのパネル討論

意見と態度

1. b) In what sense a much-repaired building remains the same buildingInes は、大幅に修理された建物は、どんな意味で同じ建物であり続けるのかと尋ねています。
2. b) He has held and argued this view for many years彼は、その問いが何十年も自分の頭を占めてきたことをほのめかしています。
3. a) Skilful hidden repair destroys evidence of the wall's historyひび割れは証拠であり、それを目立たないように埋めると、装飾のために文書を破壊することになると述べています。
4. b) It is fine in theory but impractical for buildings that must stay in use使われている建物は絶えず修理が必要なので、彼のルールは費用がかかり実際的ではないという意味です。
5. a) A ruin is at least honest about its condition彼は彼女の皮肉を切り返しています。偽装された修理よりも、正直な劣化のほうを好むのです。
6. c) Repair marked so that new work can be told from old彼は新しい木材を使い、新しい部分が目に見えるようにそこに日付を刻みます。
7. a) Visible repairs can make a building look like a patchwork修理の跡をすべてはっきり示す建物は寄せ集めのようになり、気が散ることもあると述べています。
8. c) Priya finds it reassuring, but Quentin thinks it is a false argumentPriya は、同一性は手入れが途切れず続くことにあると言い、Quentin はそれを詭弁だと呼び、succession は survival ではないと述べています。

重要な細部

1. forgery彼は、どれほど見栄えがよくても、それは偽造品だと呼んでいます。
2. sacksそれは、雨が袋にかからないようにするために建てられたと述べています。
3. two hundred / 200それは200年間続いてきたと述べています。
4. date梁に日付を刻むようにと言っています。
5. lawn目は芝生の上で休められると述べています。
6. survival彼は、succession は survival ではないと述べて締めくくっています。

Ines: Good evening. One question tonight: when a historic building has been repaired so often that little of the original remains, in what sense is it still the same building? My guests are Quentin Baird, a conservator who has spent his career preserving old stonework, and Doctor Priya Nair, an architect who restores buildings for modern use. Quentin, you look as though you've been waiting for this.

Quentin: I've been waiting since about nineteen ninety. My position is simple. A building is a record, and a record that has been rewritten is a forgery, however handsome. If a medieval wall has a crack in it, the crack is evidence of what happened to the wall. Fill it so skilfully that nobody can tell, and you have destroyed a document in order to produce a decoration.

Priya: That is a wonderful argument for a museum and a rather expensive one for a town hall. Buildings are not records. They are tools that happen to be beautiful. The grain exchange I'm working on now was never meant to be admired. It was meant to keep rain off sacks, and it has carried on doing that for two hundred years only because somebody kept replacing the bits that rotted. If we had followed Quentin's rule, it would be a very distinguished heap.

Quentin: I would point out that a distinguished heap tells the truth.

Priya: So does a bus timetable, and nobody wants to live in one.

Ines: Quentin, is there any repair you would accept?

Quentin: Of course. Repair that is honest. If a beam has to be replaced, use new timber and cut the date into it, so that a visitor in the next century can see exactly what is old and what is ours. What I object to is the quiet substitution, where new work is dressed up to look ancient, and everybody is invited to admire a joke that nobody admits to making.

Priya: On that I'm with him, though I'd add something he won't enjoy. Honesty has a price. A building that announces every repair becomes a patchwork, and some visitors find it distracting. There is a case for letting the eye rest.

Quentin: The eye can rest on a lawn.

Ines: Let me raise the cost, since someone always does.

Quentin: Someone always does, and it is usually the person who will not be paying. Neglect is also expensive; it merely sends the invoice to the next generation.

Ines: There's an old puzzle about a ship whose planks are replaced one by one until none is original. Does either of you find it useful?

Priya: I find it comforting. It suggests that identity lies in continuity of care rather than in material.

Quentin: I find it a sophism. The ship has not been preserved. It has been succeeded. And succession, however loving, is not the same thing as survival.

Ines: Neither of you has convinced the other, which I take as the sign of a good discussion. Thank you both.