Distinguishing new architecture from old

Practitioners in the heritage field are continuously attempting to reconcile the conservation of cultural heritage and the insertion of new buildings in the historic environment. According to codes of good practice, new architecture should be compatible with, yet distinct from, old architecture. This rule of intervention may seem contradictory, but compatibility and distinction are actually two sides of the same coin. Having examined the meaning of compatibility and proposed new design and assessment tools in recent publications to help achieve the goal of compatible insertions, this author follows up that qualitative research with an examination of distinction. The latter is a conservation principle, expressed by John Ruskin in the nineteenth century, endorsed internationally in the Venice Charter in the twentieth, and embraced in national Charters and conservation policy documents subsequently. The author questions the reasoning behind distinction to open up different ways of thinking about it, which may result in positive implications for dialogue, policy and practice.