Abstract
Globalization is associated with significant transformations in city forms and cultural and social performances. Governments and cultural heritage organisations increasingly appreciate the importance of preserving diverse physical cultural heritage through rehabilitation and the implementation of conservation plans. Nevertheless, there is a need to evaluate whether these plans understand the importance of cultural memory in societies, as well as how it affects the human psyche. Utilizing Orabi Square, which is one of the richest Historic Urban Landscapes (HUL) in the metropolitan city of Alexandria in Egypt, this study aims to answer the question; to what extent does Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) management present a situation that maintains cultural memory and achieve psychosocial well-being? The research explored the site’s old and new conditions and place experience, applying a qualitative approach through onsite face-to-face semi-structured interviews combined with data from a Facebook group—Alexandria’s Spirit. The QSR Nvivo12 analysis program was used for the data interpretation and for charting the intangible values accompanying cultural memory such as emotions and behaviour. The study indicated that cultural memory is an affective catalyst for emotional attachment to place and is an important factor informing sense of place. Based on our study, inclusion of cultural memories should be an integral element in the future management plans of Orabi Square to enhance place experience and psychosocial well-being.
Highlights
This paper asks the question, to what extent does Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) management present a situation that maintains cultural memory and achieve psychosocial well-being?HULs have received more attention after the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recommendations in 2011 which aimed at protecting historic urban settings from deterioration and fragmentation resulting from uncontrolled urban developments [1].The recommendations defined HUL as “[t]he urban area understood as the result of a historic layering of cultural and natural values and attributes, extending beyond the notion of ‘historic cent[er]’ or ‘ensemble’ to include the broader urban context and its geographical setting” [2]
This paper focuses on how cultural memory can be maintained and used as a tool to enhance the HUL management plan for Orabi Square in order to create a better place experience by recalling the square’s lost sense of place and identity, enhancing the psychosocial well-being of its users
The research participants in the Orabi Square on site interviewees and Facebook contributors represented different components and factors of cultural memory in their interviews and comments. They showed the relationship between cultural memory with the concepts of psychosocial well-being, sense of place, place identity, place attachment and a landscape approach
Summary
The recommendations defined HUL as “[t]he urban area understood as the result of a historic layering of cultural and natural values and attributes, extending beyond the notion of ‘historic cent[er]’ or ‘ensemble’ to include the broader urban context and its geographical setting” [2]. This definition included the intangible values previously largely ignored in HUL in old conservation policies and approaches that privileged values of the physical environment. Urban Sci. 2020, 4, 7 exist [4] Some of these memories are individual (personal) but other ones are social (collective) often named as ‘cultural memory’
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