Ingmar Holmström, long-time ICCROM collaborator and friend, passed on 31 March 2021 at the age of nearly 88 years.
Born on 23 February 1933, Ingmar studied in Stockholm, where he graduated in Civil Engineering from the Higher Technical Institution, and in Architecture from the Royal institute of Technology. In the 1960s and 1970s he established the architectural firm Restaureringsteknik AB, Stockholm, which specialised in the conservation of protected historic buildings, including many state-owned mediaeval churches and castles. From 1977 to 1998, Ingmar worked at the Swedish National Heritage Board as the Head of Conservation Technology. From the 1990s, he also ran a conservation consultancy firm, Husdoktorn Byggkonsult, and undertook research in traditional building materials.
From 1986 to 1995, Ingmar represented Sweden on the Scientific Council of EuroCare, during which time he focused on building restoration and initiated the EuroLime project, before later continuing with Karlsruhe University in Germany. He worked with various international research projects, including the European Raphael Programme. In 1993, Ingmar advised on a project entitled "Mortars and Binders for Conservation" at the University of Thessaloniki, Greece. He was also a regular lecturer at several universities in Sweden and other Nordic countries.
Ingmar first became involved with ICCROM in September 1975, during European Architectural Heritage Year, when he was a keynote speaker at the International Expert Meeting on the Structural Conservation of Monuments, jointly organised by ICCROM and the UK Department of the Environment in Greenwich. From then on, Ingmar remained in contact with ICCROM, and, from 1985, regularly lectured on the conservation of historic buildings as part of the International Architectural Conservation Course (ICCROM-ARC). In 1992, he was also a lecturer at the International Course on the Preservation of the Earthen Architectural Heritage in Grenoble, France, organised by ICCROM and CRATerre’s GAIA programme.
From the 1990s, Ingmar undertook periods of research, often benefiting from ICCROM’s library resources, and collaborated as an adviser on the Management Guidelines for World Cultural Heritage Sites (B.M. Feilden & J. Jokilehto, ICCROM 1993). Ingmar has several publications in English. These include the paper on Maintenance of Old Buildings, prepared jointly with Christina Sandström for the ICCROM Greenwich conference in 1975. At the ICCROM Symposium on Mortars, Cements and Grouts used in the Conservation of Historic Buildings (Rome, November 1981), he presented a paper entitled Mortars, cements and grouts for conservation and repair. His 1972 book Maintenance of old buildings: preservation from the technical and antiquarian standpoint was published by the National Swedish Institute for Building Research in several editions.
A very gentle and warm person, Ingmar Holmström was always ready to help. He called himself Husdoktorn – House Doctor – and his approach to maintaining and conserving historic structures could almost be comparable to a modernised version of the Hippocratic Oath: ‘I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow. I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.’
Director General Webber Ndoro and ICCROM staff offer their heartfelt condolences to his family and colleagues.
Jukka Jokilehto