Is Heritage Over?

This event is part of SHBT's Challenging Conservation 24/25 lecture series.

Speakers:

Prof Ian Baxter - Heriot Watt University

Ranald MacInnes - Historic Environment Scotland

When shouldn't we conserve buildings? In each session of our series of conversations, professionals and thinkers from Scotland and beyond have debated questions designed to challenge the practices of conservation, and to interrogate the assumptions that underly them. Challenging Conservation concludes with a discussion asking how we approach the most difficult decisions of all: what, and when, we choose not to restore.

Ian Baxter is Professor of Historic Environment Management at Heriot-Watt University and chairs the Historic Environment Working Group (HEWG) on behalf of Built Environment Forum Scotland, which brings together the main NGOs working across heritage and the wider built environment. Ian will question the role of heritage in society, and the ability of our current management systems to cope with ever-faster value shifts about our surrounding past(s).

Ranald MacInnes is Head of Outreach and Learning at Historic Environment Scotland and a former Head of Heritage Management with responsibilities which included advising the Scottish Government on planning and historic environment issues. Ranald will discuss the modern history of ‘heritage’ and will ask how it might be reimagined and re-purposed for our times.

He began his career with English Heritage in the 1980s and his written widely on the history of architecture and conservation. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland, a Visiting Professor of Architectural History at the University of Strathclyde and an Honorary Research Fellow of the School of Culture and Creative Arts at the University of Glasgow.

Host or Publisher Scottish Historic Buildings Trust