What Would Ruskin Say?

HOW do I form my views as to whether something which is presently being done to an historic building, especially a cathedral, is right or fitting? Very simply, I wonder what the original intentions were of those people who were involved in creating them. We are not the masters of these buildings, they are, we are but this generation's organs of their inherited will. If I see people now doing things to their creations which they would not themselves have done, I construe it an injury. Within this formula I make some allowance, but only a very little allowance, for the requirements of a new age. Therefore I can appease my conscience with electric lighting, although I still abhor to see the ugly wires of such running along limestone and marble. However, all this business of wasting money on flawed technologies such as solar panels and wind turbines is ill conceived in general, and woefully conceived in particular for additions to holy buildings. In thirty years' time, or more probably - fifteen years' time, when these expensive segments of cladding are peeled off, as being rendered redundant by more substantial energy developments, people will shake their heads in wonder at the short-sighted tastelessness that ever led to their installation. Some additions can be good additions when they are positively in keeping with the original vision. I approve of Canterbury Cathedral's newly painted entrance gate, although I think the paint will profit by some weathering. I approve of Wells' Cathedral's basket chairs in the nave, as they are in themselves attractive pieces of furniture, they match the cathedral's historic wooden parts in colour, and serve a very certain purpose. Even certain concerts, though they grieve me I must admit, are not too objectionable if they are of appropriate music and do not require damaging the building's interior with various drilling points, bits of scaffolding, and excessive added equipment. As far as I am concerned, if singers wish to sing in holy places they should adapt to their venue and not the other way about. As long as consistently possible these buildings should be visible in all their glory. Nowadays anyone who wishes to even have a look at them from a distance is three times in ten treated with A sunset view of scaffolding with peeping glimpses of cathedral in the background. Some of these repair works are doubtless necessary, some are doubtless not. The colosseum had no such works made upon it, but if they must be done let them be done at once, without this gradual putting up and pulling down to span over three decades. I have lived near Canterbury all my life and the cathedral has variously been in scaffolding, and in appeals on the backs of buses to fund it, for much of that time. I often think the same when I visit London, are all these buildings really in need of this seemingly perpetual work, or is there a gravy express involved, a circle of self-fulfilling expenditure? Again I cite Roman and Greek buildings which have survived pretty well two to three times longer. Some work is understandable, endless work is not. Nor are these works without their risks as we discovered to our cost in the case of the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris.