John Fidler is an UK-licensed architect based in Los Angeles. Since April 2007, he has been a staff consultant with Simpson Gumpertz & Heger Inc., a national engineering company with 5 offices across the USA that designs, investigates and rehabilitates building envelopes and structures of all types - including heritage assets. In 2008 he was appointed corporate practice leader for preservation technology with the firm. John’s recent work includes consulting on Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis House in Hollywood, on collapsing masonry at San Carlos Cathedral (the Royal Presidio Chapel) in Monterey, and on the Classical Ruins of Palmyra, a World Heritage Site in the deserts of Syria.

His preservation experience stretches over 30 years of work in the private and public sector concerned with the technical conservation and management of historic buildings and ruined archaeological sites. He is an international authority of the cleaning and repair of terracotta and offers other lectures on the ethics and standard of historic preservation; on stone masonry deterioration, cleaning and repair; mortars, plasters and renders, timber decay and repair; flood prevention; the use of nondestructive evaluation of historic structures; and the principles of fire safety engineering for historic sites.

Fidler was a 2006/7 Getty Scholar researching the training of architects, engineers and other construction professionals in building conservation.

He was formerly the Conservation Director at English Heritage where he was responsible until July 2006 for national technical policy development, research, advice and services, standards, training, outreach and publications. He sponsored the back-to-back conferences of the AIA Historic Resources Committee and UK-ICOMOS at the University of Bath, England on the training of architects in preservation. His multi-disciplinary department included structural, civil and public health engineers and he devoted resources to working with the UK Institute of Civil Engineers (ICE) and Institute of Structural Engineers (IStructE) on the joint accreditation CARE scheme for engineers in conservation.

With the support of UK Construction Skills, a government agency, John Fidler instigated the labour market analysis research that unlocked UK Government resources for the retention and development of craft skills in England through the National Heritage Training Group. He has lectured extensively at UK and American universities on the technical aspects of building conservation and is a course tutor for ICCROM’s International Stone Conservation Course in Venice. He was external examiner for the postgraduate conservation courses at Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh and the Institute of Advanced Architectural Studies at York University, and he validated the joint Masters degree program of the University of Oxford and Oxford Brookes University.

Fidler is a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects, of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation, and of the UK Institute of Conservation. He is an international associate member of the American Institute of Architects and a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the Royal Society of Arts, of the Society of Antiquaries, of the International Institute for Conservation, and of the Association for Preservation Technology International.

Until recently, he was the Vice President for Programs of the managing council of ICCROM (the inter-governmental International Centre for Studies of the Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Property in Rome) and a member of the Conservation Grants Committee of the Getty Foundation. In his adopted city of Los Angeles he sits on the Historic Resources Committee of the City Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, and is a board member of the Western Chapter of the Association for Preservation Technology and of the California Preservation Foundation.

Fidler is past chairman of the British Standards Institution Drafting Committee for BS 8221/2: 2000 The Cleaning and Surface Repair of Buildings and participated in the European CEN Technical Committee on the Conservation of Cultural Property. He is currently active on ASTM Committee C7 on Building Limes and sits on the editorial boards of Elsevier (Butterworth-Heinemann series), of Taylor Francis (Building Research & Information) and of the Getty Conservation Institute. His department at English Heritage was responsible, under his leadership, for award winning technical publications including the Practical Building Conservation series, Timber Decay in Buildings, Modern Matters and the English Heritage Research Transactions.

Previous architectural work in the UK included project housing rehabilitation in Salford; the conservation of medieval churches in Kent and Winchester cathedral; the maintenance and repair of the City of London’s Roman Walls, the medieval Guildhall and the Lord Mayor’s Mansion House (1735). In the USA he has consulted in Washington DC, Colonial Williamsburg and worked with the University of Pennsylvania for the National Park Service at Mesa Verde World Heritage Site – on the monitoring and conservation of 14th century pueblo Indian cliff dwellings.

John Fidler was the first Historic Buildings Architect for the City of London, the UK’s first Conservation Officer for Buildings-at-Risk, and the youngest and last Superintending Architect at English Heritage.

He has lectured and published widely in the UK and USA.