ABSTRACT
This introduction presents key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book tells the story of the conservation and reuse of old buildings in Britain since 1975. It was European Architectural Heritage Year (EAHY); it can also be seen in retrospect that the mid-1970s was a time of fundamental change in attitudes about the treatment of what was just then coming to be called the heritage. Interestingly, it was almost exactly a century since William Morris had founded the first national buildings conservation body, The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. EAHY was a success in that it caught the popular imagination and epitomized a general antipathy to the results of postwar planning and housing policies, or at least the most visible results demolition, comprehensive redevelopment, and high-rise flats. Harold Wilson's white heat of technology, had rapidly given way to pain at the all-too-visible destruction of historic fabric and loss in environmental quality.
