Introduction: managing and moderating change -- Section 1: Setting the scene -- The historic context: principles and philosophies -- Modern architecture's place in the city: divergent approaches to the historical core -- Tradition: the driving force of urban identity -- Section 2: The institutional and public perception -- Organizations, charters and world movements - an overview -- The national interest -- Historicism and the public perception -- The planer's perspective: a view from the front -- Assessing quality: the pertinenet criteria for designing buildings in historic settings -- Examples of good practice, 1961-98 -- Section 3: inside the mind of the designer -- From Bauhaus to Boilerhouse -- Contributing to historic settings without kow-towing -- Defining the cultural context of historic buildings -- The essential elements in developing new designs for historic settings -- Pulling teeth and filling cavities! -- A Continental perspective. The second chambe of the Netherlands parliament, 'de Tweede Kamer', The Hague -- Postscript: conservation through development