Abstract
This study puts urban heritage in the setting of property owners’ small-scale and resource-based management of ordinary old buildings. This phenomenon indicates a need not only to reconceptualize urban heritage in its actual complex web of negotiations over constraints of the regulation (urban planning, including preservation) and economy (the real estate market) but also to pay attention to the emergence of a new ethos. The case concerns a Swedish second-city context and the specific moment in time: When the 1990s recession had disarmed the real estate market. Based upon ethnographic fieldwork, this study used an assemblage perspective to allow for a following of entanglements of material and matter. The study sheds light upon the emergence of a small-scale and resource-based management in the midst of managerially defined cycles of investment. Important for the output was 1) the set-up of a network of skilled craftsmen, antiquarians, and entrepreneurs ‘of the right mindset that enabled for the authentic material result but that also helped navigate regulation and financial parties, 2) the “alternative market for reverential maintenance and repair” that guaranteed the appropriate supply of materials, products, and skills that differed from the mainstream construction market. For the means of understanding the ethos involved, the study introduced the notion of “factual life-span of buildings”. The overall aim of this article was to contribute to research on heritage urbanism by adding a resource management perspective that focusses on the entanglements of material and matter.
Highlights
Existing old urban buildings confront heritage practitioners, planners, policymakers, real estate managers, property owners, and citizens alike when it comes to negotiating the relationship between the urban past, present, and future
The article suggested that urban heritage is about oeconomia, meaning housekeeping, husbandry, and economy in the sense of using resources wisely, for gain beyond the individual, and with long-term perspectives
The perspective employed allows a focus on the entanglements of material and matter
Summary
Existing old urban buildings confront heritage practitioners, planners, policymakers, real estate managers, property owners, and citizens alike when it comes to negotiating the relationship between the urban past, present, and future. The main argument is that any up-to-day conceptualization of urban heritage needs to acknowledge urban heritage as a particular outcome. It is not about the particularities of the object of concern (old and with artistic qualities or alike), it is not about which are the specific actors and initiatives involved (the authorization given), and it is not about the discourses involved. It is not even about the future as such. Heritage research—methods, perspectives, empirical material, and interpretations—must aim beyond structuralist understandings
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