Agnieshka Kiera
WA Representative
Agnieshka Kiera is a registered conservation architect with Masters Degree in architecture from Krakow's Polytechnic, Poland. She had completed postgraduate studies and obtained qualifications in conservation of architecture from the Copernicus University, Torun, Poland, 1970; postgraduate diploma in urban conservation from Warsaw University, Warsaw, Poland, 1972-73; and diploma in conservation of cultural property from ICCROM (International Centre for Conservation of Cultural Property), Rome, Italy, 1975.
Agnieshka worked for 10 years for the National Authority for Conservation of Cultural Property (Pracownie Konserwacji Zabytkow) and, since arriving in Australia in 1984, has been Heritage Architect/City Architect at the City of Fremantle, Western Australia, including the four years study break. In addition to her professional role Agnieshka is the Executive Officer of the Heritage and Special Places Advisory Committee to Fremantle City Council. In her capacity as the City's only Heritage Architect, Agnieshka has been responsible for the following three main areas of the City's heritage conservation activities:
- Management of the City's heritage regime. This ranges from ensuring adherence to the City's statutory responsibility for the establishment and ongoing management, including periodical updates and reviews of the largest Municipal Heritage Inventory in WA (approx 3600 listed places). Agnieshka is also responsible for the management of heritage resources of Fremantle through planning in her advisory role to the development control, local planning scheme, local area planning policies, provision of technical conservation advice to Fremantle's community, compatible redevelopment guidelines, community consultation and information dissemination (heritage brochures, heritage forums, heritage website, heritage workshops etc), supervising Heritage Planner and servicing Heritage & Special Places Committee in her role of its executive officer;
- Strategic Conservation Planning: preparation of conservation management plans and conservation strategies for both, individual places and heritage areas of Fremantle as well as the City of Fremantle's extensive portfolio of heritage properties and reserves; conception and procurement of statutory means for the ongoing integration of heritage conservation with planning; interdepartmental liaisons ranging from membership of the Ministerial Working Party on legislation's review and Heritage Tourism Strategy for Western Australia, to direct liaison with the Minister; from heritage advocacy at the regional/state/national and, occasionally, international levels, to the ongoing consultation with local community and development of heritage incentives for private owners of the heritage listed places in Fremantle. Finally, responsible for the ongoing heritage education and promotion through such initiatives as Fremantle Heritage Festival, trails, heritage awards, publications, organisation of conferences and professional workshops.,
- Management of heritage projects and initiatives - this includes development and staged implementation of the 10 year Capital Conservation Projects Strategy aiming at a full conservation of the City of Fremantle's $50m heritage property portfolio. This involves all essential steps leading to an accomplishment of the strategy's objectives: from the establishment of the ratepayer's funded City of Fremantle's Heritage Places Reserve Fund, preparation of budgets, feasibility studies and estimates, through funding strategies and procurement of funds from external sources to the joint ventures with the city's major stakeholders on the specific conservation projects. From threading the designs through the Council's decision making process and community consultation to management of the staged implementation of the adopted conservation works program on significant buildings and areas of Fremantle.
Agnieshka is a former member of the Heritage Council of Western Australia; has previously served for 6 years on the Executive Committee of Australia ICOMOS. She undertook PhD research at the Institute of Sustainability and Technology Policy, Murdoch University, on "Heritage conservation as operational means of sustainable development in the free market urban economies".