TrustNews Mar 22

Sir Donald Insall

Michael Carden profiles one of the country's great historic building conservation architects and a Trust vice-president.

 

 

I wish we could simply send each of you a copy of Sir Donald Insall's intriguing, highly instructive and very enjoyable book called Living Buildings, but it is bulky, having 270 pages with fabulous colour photographs and drawings on every page, together with several of Donald's own charming watercolours. The book is partly a history of his practice, but it is so much more than that, being a steadily developed philosophy of the whole complicated and controversial subject of historic building conservation, illustrated with practical examples of the basic and positive principle that such buildings need "to live" if they are to survive.

 

I first met Donald in my early 30s when attending a Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) course, which included visits to conservation works in progress. One of these was Chevening House in Kent, built in the 17th century and by then badly altered and in very poor condition. The responsibility for its future had devolved to a board of trustees who had appointed Donald lnsall Associates to restore, remodel and conserve it for the use of persons of consequence as an official residence compatible with their office. I was immediately impressed by Donald's handling of the bevy of inexperienced young architects imposed on him that day. He did not lecture us but explained the building's many problems and asked how we would solve them, discussing with us the range of potential solutions as if we were his contemporaries. ln addition to his conservation skills, I believe this approach to clients, builders, officials and colleagues has been another reason for the great success of the practice he founded in 1958, and which has steadily expanded ever since.

 

 

Donald's architectural education, starting at the end of the war, was primarily at the Royal West of England Academy School of Architecture (now part of Bristol University), and was rounded off with the nine-month SPAB Lethaby Scholarship that enables students to travel the country experiencing how every historic building is, as he describes it in the book, "a product not only of its originators. . .but of the continuing effects upon its materials of time and weather, and of generations of successive occupants, each with his own set of values and requirements. Each building carries, and clearly demonstrates, the impact and influence of all its changing and unforeseeable circumstances." Those of us privileged to work on such buildings (and in his case whole areas, even towns) must handle them with great care, starting with thorough investigation and research, and then taking the crucial decisions on how best to conserve and enhance their tangled mixture of original and acquired characteristics, so that they may continue to enjoy a purposeful existence, while still retaining their special character. How, in other words, and with only essential intervention, they may continue "living".

 

 

 

Donald lnsall Associates is an employee-owned practice that now has nine offices around the country with over one hundred members. The practice has been responsible over the years for a very great many fascinating projects in the UK and abroad, amongst which are such well-known examples as the Chamber of the House of Lords, Hampton Court Palace, The Tower of London and the restoration of Windsor Castle after the fire. We are only able to illustrate a small selection of the firm's work. There have also been many honours, awards and appointments to committees and Commissions for Donald, together with roles for numerous organisations, including for nearly 20 years his Vice-Presidency of the City of Winchester Trust, from which in present circumstances and at the age of 96, he feels obliged to retire, which we must regretfully accept, with our grateful thanks for all his help and support to us and our City.