Edited by Catherine Croft and Susan Macdonald with Gail Ostergren, 2019

Conserving Modern Heritage series

Purchase a copy

Fourteen case studies address the challenges of conserving the twentieth century's most ubiquitous building material—concrete. Following a meeting of international heritage conservation professionals in 2013, the need for recent, thorough, and well-vetted case studies on conserving twentieth century heritage became clear. This book answers that need and kicks off a new series, Conserving Modern Heritage, aimed at sharing best practices.

The projects selected represent a range of building typologies, uses, and sizes, from the high-rise housing blocks of Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation and public buildings such as London's National Theatre to small monuments like the structures at Dudley Zoological Gardens and a sculpture by Donald Judd. They also represent a range of environmental and economic contexts.

Some projects benefit from high levels of heritage protection and access to funding, while others have had to negotiate conservation with stringent cost limitations. All follow a rigorous conservation approach, beginning with a process of investigation and diagnosis to identify causes and target repairs, balanced with conservation requirements to preserve significance.