SPEAKERS & ABSTRACTS

Monticello, Virginia, USA

I will trace the history of the World Heritage Convention as implemented through federal legislation and regulation.  The United States took the lead in the development and ratification of the Convention, but over the years the almost unanimous support has eroded to a point that there is a question as to whether the Convention can be and effective tool in American preservation.  I will discuss the evolution of the federal law and regulation along with the effort in Congress to amend the legislation for the purported purpose of protecting property rights and American sovereignty. I will discuss Constitutional implications and look at legislative and regulatory alternatives for taking the issue forward.

Maria de las Nieves Arias Incolla (Argentina)

Historic Buenos Aires as a World Heritage Cultural Landscape - images

The proposed area is in the City of Buenos Aires, capital of the Argentine Republic, located in the Southern hemisphere of the American continent. This city extends for 19.4 kilometres from North to South and 17.9 kilometres from East to West.  Within its  perimeter of 202 square kilometres lives a population of nearly 3 million.

The city of Buenos Aires has had a special relationship with the Rio de la Plata since it was founded.  There is something culturally different about this relationship that sets Buenos Aires apart from other coastal cities.  Although, as Peter Fowler pointed out, "the city is the cultural landscape par excellence", this thought would enter in conflict with the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage and, specifically, with Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention. To attain a compatibility between considering the city as a Cultural Landscape on the one hand, and the recommendations of the Committee on the other, constitutes a true challenge.

The case of BUENOS AIRES, CULTURAL LANDSCAPE, is presented in a wider and integrating context. We understand that this sector of the city is much more than an Historical Centre and much more than an homogeneous urban area.  It constitutes a cultural landscape, with plenty of capacities and potentialities to reflect and to contain the historic city, a city in constant evolution.

In summary, it is the expression of an original human settlement that conserves its authenticity through the associative values of the tangible, physical heritage and the intangible, immaterial one, that have loaded the urban geography with uses and emotions (remarkable bars, cinemas, tango places, etc.)

Luisa de Marco (Italy)

Victor Shmyrov (Russia) - presented by Azat Usmanov

Preserving the meaning of the gulag - images/presentation

The preservation of the Gulag’s memory is important for Russia’s development into a just and democratic country.  Unfortunately, much of the Gulag’s material culture has disappeared.  The Gulag was a tremendous catastrophe of inhumanity.  Through the Stalin era (1924-1953), some 40 million people passed through the forced labor concentration camp system known as the Gulag.

Gulag camps covered the territory of the former USSR like a thick net. The total number of separate camp ‘zones’ (local territories housing prisoners behind barbed wire) was estimated at several thousand. Nearly all Gulag camps were constructed of wood.  They were generally conceived, designed and built as temporary institutions to house prisoners for industrial, mining and construction projects. As soon as their economic assignment was complete, the camp zones were either destroyed or abandoned. Of the thousands of camps that once comprised the infamous Gulag Archipelago, Perm-36 is the only remaining fully preserved сamp, now the Gulag Museum at Perm-36.

The issues of preserving material Gulag culture are important and relevant not only for Russia but also for humanity history as a whole. The Gulag Museum has struggled for ten years not only to preserve this important historic site, but also to increase general awareness of its work and of the importance of thinking about and talking about this past history of injustice in today’s Russia.  From preparing materials for schools to encouraging visits to the Museum, we strive to bring the attention of Russia’s developing civil society and the central and local government officials to the problems and significance of the site’s preservation.

Ashley De Vos (Sri Lanka)

The rehabilitation of the tsunami-devastated city of Galle

The Tsunami that ravaged Sri Lanka on the 26th of December 2004 destroyed the port city of Galle. Within half an hour the waves had subsided leaving the city helpless and disillusioned. The fortified city was spared, protected by the massive rampart walls that surrounded it. Galle is presently faced with the task of producing a Master Plan for the rehabilitation of the city which, while respecting the World Heritage Convention permits the city to recuperate and live again. The Master Plan envisages the expansion of the city’s present municipal boundaries creating new and more appropriate uses to replace that which were lost. Many of the new facilities being introduced will showcase Galle as the new cultural centre of the Southern Region. The final shifting of all the governmental establishments from within the heritage city will complete and bring into focus the culmination of the conservation programme. The creation of the extensive beach park on the tsunami devastated beach-front will help ease the visual tension that previously existed with inappropriate activity being arbitrarily located. The new transport rail-bus link will create a more efficient and much needed connection between the city and other centres. The protection and conservation of the surrounding marshes and low lying lands, the proper management of water and the creation of green belts separating the different development areas would reinforce the traditional concept of Galle and protect it for the future as an environmentally friendly city.

Annie Harris (USA)

Historic cities: the role of heritage and history in their preservation and economic vitality

The latter half of the 20th century was not kind to American cities.  The out-migration that began as trickle after WWII became a torrent by the end of the century.  The total number of people now living in the suburbs is greater than those living in urban centers.  The result, as we have seen, has been the hollowing out of the core of our cities with sprawl and endless congestion on the suburban ring-roads.  From small to big – almost all American cities have suffered.  However, in recent years, some urban communities have regained their vibrancy. This paper seeks to demonstrate that the root to success lies with those who understand their community’s unique heritage and nurture its sense of place.

The Essex National Heritage Area presents an interesting case study of urban success stories, failures and ‘works-in-progress’ and the relationship between cities and the surrounding suburbs.  Within this 500 square mile region of northeastern Massachusetts, there are 10 cities and 24 towns co-existing in uneasy rivalry – seeking growth/no growth, preserve/rebuild strategies that often compete with each other.  Settled by Europeans in 1626, most of the communities in this region have roots that go back 200 to 300 years.  Some of the communities have been successful building economic development upon the foundation of their heritage.  Others have ignored their heritage or been ambivalent about its value.  This paper will present the tools of heritage development that have been developed by the US historic preservation community and are currently being applied in the National Heritage Areas, and will seek to analyze through examples those that are producing success.

Alberto Martorell (Spain/Peru)

Complexity of the Route of Santiago as a World Heritage site - images

During the last 3 years I have participated in the equip that has realized the evaluation of the Route of Santiago de Compostela (The French Route), in Spain. During the ICOMOS Symposium Scientific held in Xi’an, October 2005 I have presented a general vision of the Route of Santiago and the dossier for its inscription as WH Site.

The reason to propose the present paper is that the special characteristics of a so complex asset as the Route of Santiago makes it a very interesting example to analyze the two questions contained in the issue number 1 of the call for papers: What are the implications of the outstanding universal value (s?) attributed to the Route of Santiago on the comprehensive protection of the totality of sites’ (cities, towns, monuments, landscapes, etc) values?

Taking into account that the total extension of the site includes more than 800 km. the definition of the buffer zone results especially complex. We will apply the question (related to cities and towns) to the Route of Santiago. Increasing complexity of the case generates increasing interest in the looking for possible answers. In resume, the paper proposed will include: a) a general presentation of the Route of Santiago as WHS and its management; b) Complexity of outstanding universal value (s?) and comprehensive protection of the Route of Santiago’s values; and c) Analysis of the complexity of the buffer zone and some proposals for its definition in the case.

Kat Imhoff (USA)

The importance of place: viewshed protection at Monticello - images

Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, is located in the rolling Piedmont countryside of Virginia.  It is an area widely recognized for its unique scenic beauty.  The power of the place is not only in the architecture of Monticello but also in the landscape.  This setting is defined by a more than 40 mile viewshed covering thousands of acres. It is also an area feeling the intense pressures of suburban growth and change.

Today the Thomas Jefferson Foundation owns 2,300 acres of Jefferson’s original 5,000 acres plantation. Starting in 1990, the Foundation took a novel and farsighted approach in analyzing its viewshed and developing a variety of tools to promote the long term preservation of the setting of Monticello.  These tools have included placing permanent open space easements of portions of the plantation, promotion of easements with private landowners, and purchase of key properties (including a fifteen million dollar purchase of 330 acres in 2004 and the construction of an entrance corridor parkway, including a public trail).  In addition to efforts on or near Jefferson’s historic lands, the Foundation works closely with local governments and developers on the design of new construction within the Monticello viewshed,  and has taken an advocacy role on clean air, including testifying against construction of power plans, and engaged in community planning.  These have been very non-traditional roles for a historic site but are well worth examining as models for other world heritage projects that are feeling growth and development pressures.

Elena Molina (Peru)

The social appropriation of the heritage in the Historic Center of Lima - images

Lima was chosen by the Spanish as the capital of the colony because of its strategic location and today the historic centre is still the place where the decisions of the country are taken. But the monumentality built around this place since its foundation is still partially hidden by the process of damage that today seems to change its path.

The Municipality of Lima has recently included to the plan of recuperation, the project for the social appropriation of the heritage in the historic center to give sustainability to the whole city project. Even when it is an initiative promoted by the local government, there is a participation of the public and private sectors. The objective is to generate values and capabilities in the permanent and floating population in favor of the historic centre, to approach the people to their shared properties and responsibilities by means of active and collective participation. This project is integrated to the physical recuperation of the city and it is supposed to give sustainability and reinforce institutionality and citizenship in the historic centre of an eight million inhabitant’s city.

An organized system of situational and permanent activities and programs oriented to specific groups or to all the community involved daily with the monumental site, are part of this project. The institutions are also important actors with roles and responsibilities. The double significance of the Historic Centre of Lima as local and world heritage is spread in diffusion and underlined to favour the process of sensibilization.

Ira Gorodskoy (Canada)

Landscape as palimpsest:
the cultural landscapes and land patterns of the Russian Orthodox monasteries in the Holy Land
- images

The Russian Christian monasteries emerged as intellectual centers for the members of the secular community who explore their national roots and cultural identities in the context of the Diaspora. The purpose of this research is to understand the multi-faceted meanings of the sacred places; to narrate a legacy of cultural landscapes of the Russian monasteries, influenced by the pilgrimage flows; and to comprehend the dynamics of land transformations in response to historical events and political disturbances. This research explores the research question: since the second half of the 19th century, how has the Russian pilgrimage phenomenon been inscribed on the Holy Land? Exercising the universality of the landscape ecological theory, this inquiry proposes the two-fold holistic way of seeing the landscape as palimpsest- in the longitudinal view, as a network of pilgrimage routes along the spatial alignment; and in the horizontal cross-sectional view of the temporal layers of the landscape, based on McHarg’s ‘layer-cake’ model.

Undoubtedly, the regional political disturbances have impacted pilgrimage dynamics and the life of indigenous people. The construction of the security wall that separates the two neighboring communities, both the Israeli and the West Bank, has interrupted a network of cultural routes and affected the sense of place. The Christian monasteries’ fragility is far from being understood by local organizations and landscape planners. In order to preserve the cultural heritage for future generations, international organizations must take a set of actions--suitable for the complexity of the pilgrimage paths’ framework in the context of the desperate political struggle.  

Aysil Yavuz (Turkey)

World Heritage sites: natural versus mise-en-scene - images

In the history of conservation when scale of conservation shifted from the monument to the urban tissue, the evaluation of the individual house has also undergone conceptual changes. The evaluation of the architecture as a whole was underplayed and volumetry, exterior features, as well as relationship of the buildings with each other, vistas, and streets gained more emphasis. This has lead to more radical decision relating to the interior spaces. This shift, together with the nomination of towns as world monument has, if not interrupted, toned down the role of the individual buildings that compose the tissue. World monument or otherwise, many towns are treated as a single entity rather than parts that form a harmonious unity. Besides conservation, desire for enhancement of the cultural value that gained a worldwide acknowledgement, produced towns, which are treated as stage sets, rather than living organisms. The end result gives the impression that, from the beginning, they were meant to be looked at not to be lived in.

In this Symposium I intend to elaborate this topic from milder to extreme cases through examples that I have studied and visited in several parts of the world, besides Turkey.