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Building restoration describes the process of the renewal and refurbishment
of the fabric of a building. The phrase covers a wide span of activities, from
the cleaning of the interior or exterior of a building - such as is currently
underway at St Paul's Cathedral in London - to the rebuilding of damaged or
derelict buildings, such as the restoration of the Windsor Great Hall in Windsor
Castle after a destructive fire in 1992. The 1985–1989 removal of 38 layers of
paint and the cleaning and repair of the exterior sandstone walls of the White
House in the U.S. are an example of building restoration.
Buildings are structures which have, from time to time, particular purposes.
They require ongoing maintenance to prevent them falling into disrepair as a
result of the ravages of time and use. Building restoration can be thought of as
that set of activities which are greater than year-to-year maintenance, but
which by retaining the building are less than a demolition and the construction
of a new building.
The scope of restoration depends upon the need, and other circumstances, such as
the status of the building, and the affordability of the work required. There
are three main types of restoration:
- Building cleaning - most especially cleaning the external facade of a
building, and typically needed in cities that have suffered from smoke
pollution. Many granite, sandstone, and limestone buildings in the UK, for
example, have for most of their existence been black in colour owing to smoke
and smog. Many, in turn, have been cleaned after air pollution legislation
diminished the incidence of airborne particulate matter.
- Major repair - especially to stonework affected by acid rain and other
pollutants, and which has weathered or decayed to a structurally unsound or
aesthetically displeasing condition.
- Rebuilding to replace severely damaged or missing parts of a building. Here,
in all cases, a balance is to be struck between recreation of the original
building using materials and techniques similar to the original construction, as
happened at very great expense at Windsor Castle; and the use of more modern
techniques and materials.
Not all building restoration seeks to follow the original design of the
building. It is reasonably commonplace for the shell of a building - its
external walls - to be retained whilst an entirely new building is constructed
within. This approach is also referred to as adaptive reuse.
Although techniques of restoration are improving, the action of cleaning or
repairing buildings can, with hindsight, be seen to cause problems that at the
time were unforeseen. A good example is the unrestrained use of sandblasting to
clean smog deposits from soft-stoned buildings - a technique employed in the UK
in the 1960s and 1970s - which has damaged the external faces of stonework to
the extent that in some cases, later, the stonework has needed to be replaced.
Contemporary building codes recognise such problems, and (it is to be hoped)
mitigate poor outcomes.
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