ABSTRACT
This essay goes beyond Ruskin's theories of perception and his polemical intentions in The Seven Lamps of Architecture to consider how his ideas on preservation both connected and conflicted with those of his contemporaries. His reception by architect, George Gilbert Scott, and historian, Edward Freeman, provide two synchronous contexts for seeing how Ruskin's indictment of restoration entered the architectural debate of the 1850s. It looks at the after-life of the work and its transformation in the hands of others and how Ruskin's own thinking developed in his actions to defend what he believed was at stake. Finally, there is an exploration of Ruskin's position, as an author who arguably transformed the heritage futures of his own times, in relation to contemporary thinking about heritage futures. The concluding extract is from The Opening of the Crystal Palace (1851) which invited Ruskin's readership to question what happens in the name of preservation and conservation.
