IAN KIRKWOOD: In the name of the charter

That bare glass and steel framework was so at odds with the imposing Gothic revival might of the cathedral that I knew straight away that the culprit was B.C.

No, not architect Barney Collins, whose reputation in working with Hunter heritage buildings is second to none.

No, the culprit is the Burra Charter, which Collins and his EJE Architecture workmate, Patrick Bless, mentioned in a piece they wrote in Saturday’s Newcastle Herald. 

The Burra Charter, little known outside heritage circles, is  Australia’s defining set of heritage conservation principles, named after the South Australian town where the charter was inaugurated in 1979.

The Burra Charter is why unpainted craftwood chipboard was used to replace missing skirting boards and fireplace mantels when Newcastle’s Customs House was restored, so that no one mistook the modern work for the original red cedar fittings.

 It’s why people I know in heritage-rich Hamilton South had to build a “shoebox” second storey, rather than the seamless addition they had planned, because the Burra Charter means that anything built on a heritage site in this era must be self-consciously modern.

Anything that replicates or imitates the original epoch is forbidden.

By this definition, additions to heritage sites must go out of their way to clash with the buildings that made the site significant in the first place.

I am prepared to accept there may be a logical philosophy behind this, but as I see it, the Burra Charter has become a make-work scheme for 21st-century architects. It’s the only reason I can see for putting something that looks like a steel factory frame next to a cathedral. 

I’ll admit a bias against most modern architecture. Personally, I think it’s been all downhill since the death in 1580 of Venetian master Andrea Palladio, whose gracious creations gave rise to the word “Palladian”.

But even the extraordinary Palladio was a copyist, reviving the sublime beauty of ancient Roman and Greek architecture,  styles still at the heart of our concepts of beauty today.

In time, the European Renaissance caused a storm in England, when the ruling classes returned from their Grand Tours to Italy to tear down their old half-timbered Tudor houses to replace them with sublime Georgian copies of what they had seen on the Continent.

But as I mentioned, Palladio himself was a copyist. He wouldn’t have got a gig on the canals if the Burra Charter had have been in force in 16th-century Venice.

 Even so, I do accept that some modern intrusions into classical spaces have worked well enough.

I.M. Pei’s Louvre pyramid is one example, although it is at once modern and ancient, self-consciously aping the classical Egyptian form.

  The Louvre pyramid was built to do a job – to draw light into a new underground entrance to France’s grandest museum. For their part, the Christ Church additions are designed to provide the cloister space that was apparently part of architect John Horbury Hunt’s original design, but never built.

 It would be interesting to see these original plans, and to see whether they could be implemented (ignoring the Burra Charter for a second) or at least used as the basis of a more aesthetically pleasing construction.

The church says the new buildings will only be seen from Church Street, but that’s like saying you’ll only see them from the front door. This is the public approach to the cathedral, and while it might only be a car park at the moment, it’s a car park with a very important backdrop.

As a final point, it’s worth remembering that the cathedral we are now venerating was only finished in 1979, the same year the Burra Charter began its hold on matters heritage.

 The final bell tower is indistinguishable from the rest of the building. This would seem to put it at stark odds with the Burra Charter’s defining principles, but I can’t see that it did any damage to the church.

 By contrast, the proposed new stainless steel spire – which reminds me of the Tinman’s hat in The Wizard of Oz – would surely have John Horbury Hunt rolling in his grave.