| "But it was the second one, 'A Church is Burning,' when I said, 'A church that isn't worth setting on fire isn't worth calling a church!'...The head of Religious Broadcasting was horrified..."! This was an East End social worker, Judith Piepe, introducing a (then unknown) Paul Simon song on a BBC Home Service Religious Broadcasting "Five to Ten" slot in January 1965. This comment totally changed religious broadcasting at the BBC, and it never went back to its old format. Ms Piepe was correct with her comment; and in the 1990s there are many, many churches which simply would not be considered as "important" to be set alight - than, say, a supermarket or shopping centre. The old, "historic" church is often now uncared for, redundant, unpleasant, and perhaps considered as an unlucky place nowadays, by a majority, it would appear, of our new multi-cultural, multi-social and multi-faith society. So why are vast amounts of money, both public and private, spent on maintaining redundant and nearly-redundant old churches each and every year even though often their congregations can number less than ten. Exactly the same can also be said for other "public" buildings such as town halls, libraries and hospitals. Their usefulness "sell by" date has long gone in terms of spatial, environmental and energy efficiency, yet there are still, quite viciously, "preserved" by the conservation lobby. This thesis attempts to illustrate some of the reasons why this is so. Sometimes the reasons are of positive value. Nevertheless, even when a proposed act of preservation is of negative value, the answer is usually to preserve regardless, rather than exploit it as an opportunity to experiment, and innovate with new forms for the future. This scenario thus typifies the essence of this thesis: why preserve landmark buildings, when the over-active preservation of them is so detrimental to the need for our future sustainable socio-economic growth. Using churches as main references points due to their widespread occurrence all over the country - both in town and country - this work demonstrates the "problems" behind preserving them, and asks what is the actual "value" of preservation to i) the Churches, ii) the churches, iii) the "community," and iv) the nation. |
