阿斯特利的城堡，在北沃里克郡，是一个重新强化的庄园，它历史可以追溯到12世纪，16世纪由Grey家族重建。这个家族领衔主演了英国的历史：爱德华四世的王后和亨利七世的女儿，简格雷夫人，著名的1553九日女王。阿斯特利城堡在第二次世界大战期间被征用，后空置。在1955年转换成一间酒店，在1978年被大火烧毁，留下一片废墟。经过超过30年的遗弃和辩论，5年前地标信托与Witherford Watson 建筑公司合作，巧妙地将简洁的线条与摇摇欲坠的砖结合，最终挽救了这幢800年历史的城堡。上帝以看玩笑的方式，让一段集权历史建筑进入百姓的视野，“朱雀桥边野草花，乌衣巷口夕阳斜。 旧时王谢堂前燕，飞入寻常百姓家。”

重建的构思，在外立面上以及内部装饰上，保持仅存下的历史遗迹，在新旧结构的搭接上，采取了及其简略的手法进行加固处理，而不是推倒重建。

The partition language also informs the very beautiful flitched oak staircase around which the plan of the new house revolves. This cage-like assembly is formed from oak studs that drop down from the first floor to support the stair-treads, providing in the process a means of protection around the perimeter. The inner balustrade is, by contrast, a demonstratively twisting form, fabricated in bronze painted steel rods. In the gloom of the lower level, one discovers its geometry through feeling rather than looking — a disconcerting encounter like finding oneself on the receiving end of a masonic handshake.

The Landmark Trust has to be applauded for undertaking this very radical project. At ?2.5 million, the work has cost a quarter of the full “restoration” which it had initially hoped to undertake. In a country where 3% of grade I and II* buildings are identified by English Heritage as at risk, this surely offers a model worthy of much wider application. For WWM, Astley also represents a breakthrough project. Through its work on Amnesty International’s headquarters and the Whitechapel Art Gallery, the now 10-year old firm has long maintained a strong concern with the adaptation of existing buildings. However, in its extreme economy of means, this latest project presents itself with the conviction of a built manifesto.
While there are obvious connections to be drawn with a scheme like the reconstruction of the Neues Museum, the sensibility at work is ultimately distinct. In returning the Berlin building to use, Chipperfield and Harrap maintained a reading of its violent history but their reconstruction is, in its way, every bit as finite as Friedrich August Stüler’s original design. At Astley, WWM has maintained a much stronger sense that the new work is just the latest episode in a continuing process of adaptation. It is not hard to imagine that in a century’s time, the house might find itself in another economic climate, serving another function. Will the birch-ply partitions then still carve up the ground floor? Will the Greys’ additions still stand open to the sky? “A house knows that there is inevitably surgery in store for it,” John Hejduk wrote, and in its new incarnation Astley conveys that awareness particularly strongly. There is a melancholy attached to that knowledge but an optimism too: an architecture that lends itself to change is, after all, alive in a way that a monument never is. Meticulous but never precious, Witherford Watson Mann’s exemplary project honours Astley Castle’s past but defends its right to a future too.