RESTORATION GUIDELINES: FRANKSTON CITY

Introduction

If you own an old or important property you are privileged. So many prospective house owners try desperately to seek some distinctive feature in new house designs only to find that their house, once built, is just like the one next door or the one down the street. On the other hand, no heritage house is identical to another, each house having accumulated its own history and the changes which went with it over time. Old houses, however, also have their disadvantages and, like new houses, constant maintenance is always needed. This report contains a large list of places which were identified as special or important in some way, whether for the people of each locality (local importance), the people of Frankston City (regional importance) or the people of Victoria (State importance). This study (see Vol. ?) has outlined the history of many of these places and described how each place contributes to the heritage of the City. A similar study is planned for that part of the former Shire of Cranbourne which now makes up the southern part of the Frankston City and some of the recognised places there have already been documented in a preliminary sense.

Key Conservation Factors

This study explains how each place was significant and the key elements which contribute to this significance. Conserving these places and hence the heritage of the area will involve observation of the following factors:

• conservation of the original significant fabric which makes up the place and ensuring that it remains visible and distinguishable from other structures on the site;
• conservation of any heritage landscape which provides a period or related setting for the place;
• careful design of any added parts to the heritage building or the building's site to ensure that the original building maintains its prominence, using related scale, form and materials;
• conservation of views to and within the place to ensure it remains visible from inside and outside of the site;
• maintenance of the original frontage or the original orientation to any new roads in the case of subdivision

Definitions

(Derived from ICOMOS Burra Charter)
The following definitions come from long and careful consideration of the art of conserving early or important structures. Many proud owners will often talk of 'restoring' their historic building but perhaps what they are really doing is repairing, maintaining or simply renovating their house.Here are some definitions:

• Place means the site, area, building, group of buildings or other works together with any associated contents and surroundings (including archaeological remains).
• Cultural significance means aesthetic, architectural, historic, scientific or social value for past, present or future generations.
• Fabric means all of the physical material of the place.
• Conservation means all of the activity involved in looking after a place so as to retain its cultural significance. Conservation includes maintenance and may (according to circumstance) include preservation, restoration, reconstruction and adaptation and will be often a combination of more than one of these.
• Maintenance means the continuous protective care of the fabric, contents and setting of a place, and is to be distinguished from repair. Repair involves restoration or reconstruction and it should be treated accordingly.
• Preservation means maintaining the fabric of a place in its existing state and retarding deterioration.
• Restoration means returning the EXISTING fabric of a place to a known earlier state by removing additions or by reassembling existing components without the introduction of new material.
• Reconstruction means returning a place as nearly as possible to a known earlier state and differs from restoration because of the introduction of materials (new or old) into the fabric rather than simply revealing or repairing existing material.
• Recreation or conjectural reconstruction is very different from either reconstruction or restoration because it involves inventing the past, by imagining and constructing what may have been part of the place or building. If the heritage value of a place is to be maintained, it is important not to falsify the message it conveys to future generations.
• Adaptation means modifying a place to suit proposed compatible uses, uses which involve no change to the significant parts of the place or changes which are reversible, or changes which will make a minimal impact. The original use of the building is likely to be the most compatible one.

In all cases of reconstruction of major elements (i.e. verandahs) every effort should be made to find evidence of the original fabric. This is to ensure that the reasons for encouraging restoration are not frustrated by incorrect restoration of atypical elements. For example, it is common to see Edwardian-era verandahs applied to Victorian-era houses and vice-versa. There is no point in 'conserving' a place if the result is a completely different structure to that which was originally thought important.

Period of Significance

The period of significance is the span of time or date range in which a property attained the significance or association for which it meets the criteria used to assess the place.