2008 Yearbook

38 Y e a r b o o k 2 0 0 8 BUILDING · CONSERVATION INSTITUTE · OF · HISTORIC · had retired from the School of the Built Environment at Liverpool John Moore’s University (LJMU) and would I be interested in helping out, ‘just a few Fridays a year on a temporary basis…’? Being a willing sort of person, I found myself unable to refuse, despite being a complete teaching novice. Had I realised the work involved I would have refused on the spot, but seven years on, and in spite of the baptism of fire that my first field trip proved to be, I am still teaching. The early years were perhaps the most challenging. With no teaching experience and having to prepare lectures from scratch, most evenings were spent at a keyboard, trying to ensure that I delivered the syllabus material in such a way as to engage and motivate the students. At the time few undergraduate courses in surveying offered building conservation as a discrete module and I was determined that students should benefit from the quality of experience that I enjoyed on my postgraduate course. A core element of the final year student experience was always the week-long field trip, usually abroad. In hindsight, a key achievement in my university career was arranging the building conservation element of our Brussels visit. With only the possibility of a building conservation contact within the city’s authority I was tasked with setting up a series of ‘conservation’ tours and presentations, providing students with sufficient depth and variety to complete a project on their return to the UK. LJMU was generous enough to fund a weekend reconnaissance trip and, armed with the name of my one contact, I headed for the offices containing the Department for the Protection of Sites and Monuments. The world of building conservation is a relatively small one and, quite coincidentally, the contact turned out to have assisted the university with an educational trip many years previously. Passionate about the protection of Brussels’ historic sites he set up a series of visits in, and outside, the tourist zone, which vividly illustrated the different approaches to conservation in the UK and Belgium. The first field trip was so successful that two further return visits were made. Students (and the lecturers) enjoyed highly individual tours of the Grand Place and Town Hall in the heart of the city, an old veterinary school in need of restoration, a convent site, the Art Nouveau ‘Olde England’ department store (now converted to a museum for musical instruments) and a journey out to Bruges to see theatre restoration in progress. While foreign field trips are, sadly, in decline, the building conservation module aims to include at least one ‘live’ conservation experience for the students. Classroom teaching provides the core ‘knowledge and understanding’ framework but site visits are invaluable for converting theory into practice and providing an insight into the complex issues that arise in the real world. Visits are planned to be as topical as possible; hence recent trips have included Manchester Victoria Baths, the Lady Lever Art Gallery at Port Sunlight and St George’s Hall in Liverpool. With Liverpool designated Capital of Culture 2008 and celebrating its 800th birthday, the city will enjoy a higher profile over the coming year, and hopefully, through contacts made at the IHBC Annual School this summer, I will be able to offer students an even closer insight into the city’s historic built environment. In 2006 I was offered a permanent part-time contract at the School of the Built Environment and now teach one day per week throughout the academic year. I am no longer wholly responsible for teaching building conservation and share delivery with a colleague. Our particular interests in conservation have, however, luckily enabled us to divide the subject into two ‘natural’ threads and I now concentrate on the areas I most enjoyed studying: the principles and philosophy of building conservation and its legal framework. The world of conservation is not a static one, and, from a teaching perspective, it is essential that students are equipped with the relevant skills and knowledge. Topics such as ‘conservation plans’ and ‘sustainability’ enjoy a significantly higher profile than when I first joined LJMU and lecture material continues to evolve each year to reflect emerging trends. The School of the Built Environment at LJMU fosters links and partnerships with many academic institutions, and the development of a new course at a partner university in Singapore means some of my teaching work is about to go international. Adapting material for a student cohort who may have never visited Britain and whose concept of building conservation is quite different to that in the UK has proved challenging at times and it is with some anticipation that I await the initial feedback. I am not a conservation practitioner but if my teaching awakens an interest in, or raises the profile of building conservation, then I consider my role as a lecturer to be thoroughly worthwhile. Where the next few years will take me at the university is unknown, but if the past seven years are anything to go by, it will certainly not be dull. The derelict church of St Andrew, Rodney Street, Liverpool, with LJMU’s Aldham Robarts Resource Centre behind: the pyramid in the churchyard is the 1851 monument to W Mackenzie, a railway contractor.