Heritage Place Building Theory, Heritage Impact Assessment and the Role of the Sacred Dimension

Abstract

Heritage properties increasingly face a number of core challenges to their management and conservation. Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA), especially that which focuses on UNESCO’s notion of outstanding universal value, effectively identifies threats posed by some of these challenges. However, heritage is not only a potential or actual recipient of negative impacts. Through heritage enterprises—private, non-profit or public entities whose missions include heritage education, management and/or conservation—heritage also impacts its place, that is, the set of relations that includes location, activities, values, objects and contextual communities. Heritage Place Building Theory (HPBT), a participatory approach that comprises four place building orientations and five analytical dimensions, facilitates the development of a reciprocal (bi-directional) HIA protocol, which is better suited to addressing and transforming core challenges to heritage management and conservation. In this article, HPBT and its relevance to a reciprocal HIA are presented and explained. Furthermore, a new, sixth HPBT dimension—the sacred—is defined and explored through a preliminary assessment of two heritage enterprise examples.