ABSTRACT
During the last twenty years, in Britain and many parts of Europe, the process of conserving the urban-built environment has become a most influential aspect of the development process. The post-war attempts to divorce the past and create a ‘brave new world’ through comprehensive redevelopment schemes and a dogmatic adherence to Modernist principles in building design have given way to a new consensus, within which there exists a strong will to retain familiar historic townscapes and knit the past and present together through more contextual forms of new development. Traditional materials, craftsmanship and ornamentation, reviled by the Modern movement, are respected once more. The motivations which fuel the desire to conserve the built environment are diverse and embrace philosophical, psychological, aesthetic, social, political and economic themes.
