Cultural Landscape Heritage Research Articles

Study on the Protection of the Lama Temple Heritage in Inner Mongolia as a Cultural Landscape

The Lama temple in Inner Mongolia, which was originally built in the Yuan Dynasty, was once the social, economic, and cultural center of Inner Mongolia, and is the most important tangible cultural heritage and intangible cultural carrier for the religious activities of Inner Mongolia throughout its history. The Lama temples in Inner Mongolia are the typical cultural landscape heritage: First, the Lama temples in Inner Mongolia are intentionally designed and created by humans and bear continuous organic evolution; second, the Lama temples in Inner Mongolia are located in a distinct geographical environment of grassland farms The Lama temples in Inner Mongolia bear an architecture type gradually formed by Mongolian society in seeking social development and religious dissemination in the prairie geographical environment, and have strong regional characteristics. Finally, the Lama temples in Inner Mongolia are the typical religious associative landscape. From the point of view of the perspective of cultural landscape heritages, this paper analyzes the characteristics and values of the Lama temple heritages in Inner Mongolia through a category comparison, proposes the organic evolution characteristics of Lama temple heritages in Inner Mongolia and the forms connecting and adapting with nature, and gives suggestions for their protection.

Senses of Place, Senses of Time: Landscape History from a British Perspective

A vast and varied literature exists on the history and archaeology of vernacular landscapes, yet still heritage ‘value’ is often weighted towards the extravagant landscapes created by powerful elites. This article is concerned to bring the wealth of historic landscape and archival research closer together with recent theoretical writing on landscape and dwelling, by focusing on the early modern period in particular. Recent theoretical approaches open up creative space for thinking through the archival material and invites landscape historians to think in terms of movement and dwelling as essential to understanding landscape at the human scale. As this article attempts to show, this is by no means a one-sided dialogue; rather historical landscape research can inform theoretical work in new and productive ways. Bridging the gaps between research areas has the potential to enrich our understanding of everyday landscapes as heritage, created by ordinary people going about their day-to-day activities. The paper argues for the importance of recasting mundane, commonplace features of the landscape—roads, fields and boundaries—as an essential part of our social and cultural landscape heritage. Read in this light, the archival sources suggest that the meanings afforded to the extant remains of the past in the landscape were made through intangible heritage practices, customs, memories, naming, rituals and performances by ‘ordinary’ people.

Lumping, Splitting and the Integration of Museum Studies with LIS

This paper is an attempt to support and promote education programs that cover the entire cultural heritage landscape (libraries, archives, museums) as an integrated, larger meta-discipline. By taking a larger picture approach, professionals who do the work of memory institutions can be more effective in their work, in the promotion of that profession, and increase public value of all related institutions and their purposes. Through the description of the integrated museum studies specialization at Kent State University School of Library and Information Science, this paper aims to provide one example of how this can work, first by describing the role of Library and Information Science (LIS) as a meta-discipline, next by discussing the changing landscape of cultural heritage professional education, and finally by describing in detail the new Kent State integrated museum studies specialization. The infusion of museum studies with LIS is discussed as a part of a larger movement toward integration of training information professionals in the entire cultural heritage sector.

Market size, scale economies, and tourism market structure: A case of historic water town tourism in China

The historic water towns in the Tai Lake Basin are representative of tourism products featuring a unique cultural heritage landscape and the local way of life in eastern China. Since the 1980s, this market has experienced phenomenal growth in both the quantity of water towns and the scale of tourist arrivals. Drawing from industrial economics theory and an agent-based modeling approach, we examine the structural evolution of this market. Simulation results show that scale economies and market size are a pair of opposite forces driving the evolution of the historic water town tourism market structure, where scale economies play a role as a barrier to deter potential entrants and ensure superprofits for existing water towns, while an expanding market size creates opportunities for entry. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed, and management recommendations are made for tourism destinations competing with identical products and services.

An Analysis of Issues and Inscription Pattern of World Heritage for Industrial Heritage

Globally, types of the inscription of World Heritage have diverged from monuments, group of buildings, and sites, but spread to concepts of living heritage, cultural landscape, and industrial heritage. Moreover, as new concepts like series heritage and trans-national heritage emerged, the inscription of world heritage turned into an essential issues of national competitiveness. In this kind of the stream of times, this paper has 3stages which have focus on industrial heritage. First it draws ambiguous arguments of the inscription of World Heritage found in ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution -Kyushu·Yamaguchi and Related Areas’, which Japan aims for the inscription in 2015. These are as follows; What constitutes industrial heritage? Is a certain period of time the only criterion for the inscription? How should we define a buffer zone? Can some parts of complex type industrial heritage be intended for the inscription? Can we inscribe the industrial facilities which are still working today as a World Heritage site? The second stage investigates and evaluates the criteria and grounds of the inscription of 59 industrial heritage sites which have been inscribed as World Heritage after 1978. Based on these 2 stages, the third stage reasons out abjective principles that industrial heritage should have as World Heritage. This study may not be the results which reflected the views of international experts of industrial heritage or passed the discussion stage, however it is judged to be the expansion of the province and th grounds of both quantity and quality level of activation of industrial heritage as World Heritage.

Analysis of National and Cultural Indentity Educational Programmes with Examples of Good Practice

In this paper we draw on the previous presentation in which we introduced the goals and theoretical foundations of the NAKI (National and Cultural Identity) educational programme. The main goal of NAKI was applied research and development whose results would contribute to creating a system of educational programmes focused on education about tangible and intangible cultural heritage including historical dwellings, cultural landscape and archaeological heritage. Using discourse analysis, we present the interpretation of the accounts of the participants of educational programmes which took place in buildings of the National Heritage Institute of the Czech Republic.

Patrimonio industrial y una propuesta para el Valle de Aburrá: un gran patrimonio en el olvido

This article is intended to show in a very general way the relationship between history and industrial heritage. It notes that the definitions of heritage, patrimonialism and monumentalism have been understood from a historical pers - pective as static entities and in an individual and isolated manner. The concepts of cultural and industrial heritage and industrial landscape are elaborations in objective construction within governments, a field in which history takes one space in the field of research. It brings up the possibility of interrelating methodologically history, anthropology, sociology, industrial archeology, marketing and legislation in the field of action in the current industry that arises in globalization. The Ferrocarril de Antioquia, current garages of Metro de Medellin, Fabricato and nearby homes meet the conditions to be considered industrial landscape.

The Living Protection of Original Ecological Environment ― Display of Intangible Cultural Landscape Based on the Concept of Eco-Museum

Abstract. The rapid development of industrialization and urbanization brought about changes in the economic structure, forms of production and lifestyle, resulting in deterioration of the natural and human environment, as well as many intangible cultural landscape degradation. To display intangible cultural heritage landscape in the form of eco-museum aims to achieve harmony between man and nature and human environment. Eco-museum with community residents’ participation in live state display is the way to retain the cultural heritage, is a means of protecting intangible cultural heritage and tradition. In this paper, based on the concept of ecological museum theory and practice, the author makes an overview of the history of establishment of eco-museums in accordance with our national conditions, to avoid the homogenization of intangible cultural heritage display modes,and to improve the cultural landscape heterogeneity and retain historical memory of diverse cultures, to protect natural and cultural environment of the country.

Pure Land

This article describes the design and implementation of the Pure Land projects, consisting of two visualization systems and their respective applications, Pure Land: Inside the Mogao Grottoes at Dunhuang [2012] and Pure Land Augmented Reality Edition [2012]. Each installation allows participants to engage in different ways with a full-scale augmented digital facsimile of Cave 220 from the UNESCO World Heritage site of the Mogao Grottoes, Gansu Province, northwestern China. This project is a collaboration between the Applied Laboratory for Interactive Visualization and Embodiment (ALiVE), City University of Hong Kong, and the Dunhuang Academy. In the Pure Land projects, the digital facsimiles of this cultural paragon have been transformed, providing formative personal experiences for museum visitors. The projects integrate high-resolution digital archeological datasets (photography and 3D architectural models) with immersive, interactive display systems. This work is of great importance because the treasuries of paintings and sculptures at Dunhuang are extremely vulnerable to human presence and, in the case of Cave 220, permanently closed to public visitors. Comprehensive digitization has become a primary method of preservation at the site. Both installations have been shown to the public at a variety of museums and galleries worldwide—to critical acclaim. The projects contribute to new strategies for rendering cultural content and heritage landscapes and suggest the future for embodied museography. Here, each project is described in detail, including innovations in interface technological application and user experience.

Predicaments of Heritage of Rural Cultural Landscape during Urbanization and its Solutions

The traditional rural cultural landscape is facing the danger of disappearance, which has carried the culture of agricultural civilization for thousands years because of rapid urbanization. In this paper, the authors mainly performed deep analysis from the villagers' sense of identity, rural cultural landscape imagery, landscape valuation norms and rural cultural landscape heritage,social integration of demand etc. The authors also proposed the solutions for rural cultural landscape heritage, in order to provide ideas for the protection of rural cultural landscape and development in new countryside construction.

PRESENTING CULTURAL HERITAGE LANDSCAPES – FROM GIS VIA 3D MODELS TO INTERACTIVE PRESENTATION FRAMEWORKS

Abstract. Two current projects of the authors try to approach cultural heritage landscapes from both cultural sciences and geography through a combination of customised geo-information (GIS) and visualisation/presentation technology. In excess of a mere academic use, easyto- handle virtual 3D web presentations may contribute to knowledge, esteem, commemoration and preservation. The examples relate to pre-historic Scythian burial sites in the South-Siberian Altay Mountains ("Uch Enmek") as well as to a "virtual memorial" of contemporary history ("GEPAM"), a chapter of Jewish prosecution in the "Third Reich", which historically connects the town of Dresden with the Czech Terezin (Theresienstadt). It is common knowledge that a profound understanding of (pre-)historic artefacts and places may reflect a larger environment as well as an individual geographic setting. Coming from this background, the presented projects try to find technical solutions. They start from GIS models and aim at customised interactive presentations of 3D models. In using the latter a widely-spanned public is invited to a land- or townscape of specific cultural importance. The geographic space is thought to work as a door to a repository of educational exhibits under the umbrella of a web application. Within this concept a landscape/townscape also accounts for the time dimension in different scales (time of construction/operation versus actual state, and in sense of a season and time of the day as a principal modulator of visual perception of space).

“Pure Land”: Inhabiting the Mogao Caves at Dunhuang

AbstractThis article examines two exhibition installations that integrate high‐resolution digital archeological datasets (photography and 3D architectural models) with immersive, interactive display systems. These analogous installations, Pure Land: Inside the Mogao Grottoes at Dunhuang and Pure Land: Augmented Reality Edition, allow visitors to engage in different ways with a full‐scale augmented digital facsimile of Cave 220 from the UNESCO World Heritage site, the Mogao Grottoes, Gansu Province, northwestern China. The peerless treasuries of paintings and sculptures at Dunhuang are extremely vulnerable. Comprehensive digitization has become a primary method of preservation at the site. The digital facsimiles of this cultural paragon can be transformed, providing formative personal experiences for museum visitors. The Pure Land projects contribute to new strategies for rendering cultural content and heritage landscapes. Interpreting these installations through the lens of phenomenology and panoramic immersion helps situate them at the forefront of virtual heritage today.

Empty Promises and False Hopes

Before the advent of colonialism in Zimbabwe the cultural heritage landscape of Matobo Hills in southwestern Zimbabwe was managed by traditional methods. These traditional methods were enforced by traditional leaders and were observed by their subjects. However, with the coming of colonialism, new modern methods of managing the cultural landscape were introduced by the colonial government. These laws, which were Eurocentric in approach, sidelined the local communities from managing and benefiting from their cultural landscape. Efforts by the indigenous communities were made during the colonial period to impede the introduction of the new laws, but when this failed it culminated in a war of liberation, which ended in 1980. With the new Zimbabwean government, the people of Matobo had hoped that their grievances would be addressed. However, the new Zimbabwean government has failed to address these issues three decades after independence. This has incensed the Matobo people and the area has become a contested landscape.

Paisaje Cultural Cafetero en Colombia: reflexiones desde Cartagena de Indias, Jaguariúna, París y Barcelona

La UNESCO acaba de reconocer el Paisaje Cultural Cafetero como Patrimonio de la Humanidad. He venido siguiendo con interés los preparativos a lo largo de mucho tiempo, y particularmente en los dos últimos años y creo que las reflexiones y proyectos que se han venido desarrollando tienen un especial interés. Se propone poner en valor los recursos que atesora este territorio, a través de diversas intervenciones siempre orientadas a impulsar el desarrollo local, la mejora de la educación y calidad de vida de sus habitantes. Ese compromiso parte del respeto al territorio, a partir de cuidadas intervenciones, a convertirlo en un lugar donde se pueda vivir con dignidad. Es precisamente en ese sentido que cabe saludarlo como un proyecto ilusionante, consensuado y compartido hacia el que avanzar.

The resource-based and the market-based approaches to cultural tourism in alpine destinations

This study focuses on the relevance of cultural resources in tourism, including cultural heritage sites, cultural landscapes, events or festivals. It seeks to reveal the differences between two management strategy perspectives, the market-based view or approach (MBV) and the resource-based view or approach (RBV), of involved destination stakeholders and the impacts of those differing approaches on their perception of cultural tourism development. The literature on the strategy orientation of organizations/destinations is reviewed and serves as the theoretical background. Data were gathered from 38 semi-structured interviews with experts and key stakeholders in alpine destinations of cultural tourism in Northern Italy, using GABEK, a tool for analyzing complex qualitative data. The results indicate differences between destinations with diverse strategy-perspectives in terms of authenticity perception, standardization, leadership and sustainability orientation. The MBV requires larger financial resources to create an effective brand image. Authenticity was found to be very important and the VRIO framework (valuable, rare, inimitable and organized) a valuable tool. The RBV is best related to niche market products. The RBV also leads to more sustainable strategies for resource use but requires strong vision and network management skills.

Cultural Landscape and Goldfield Heritage: Towards a Land Management Framework for the Historic South-West Pacific Gold Mining Landscapes

This article investigates how cultural landscapes (especially the potentially limiting organically evolved landscape) can be used as a research framework to evaluate historical mining heritage sites in Australia and New Zealand. We argue that when mining heritage sites are read as evolved organic landscapes and linked to the surrounding forested and hedged farmland, the disruptive aspects of mining are masked. Cultural landscape is now a separate listing for World Heritage sites and includes associative and designed landscape as well as those that have evolved organically. These usages have rarely been scrutinized with care. We analyse how mid-nineteenth century goldmining sites can be best thematically interpreted and understood for their heritage, indeed World Heritage, significance and, where appropriate, developed for their sustainable heritage tourism potential. Drawing on a number of research disciplines, a schematic framework is offered for interpreting and classifying these new world cultural landscapes based upon analysis of gold-rush heritage sites throughout the Trans-Tasman world. We evaluate and apply this framework to place-based case studies in Victoria, Australia and Otago, New Zealand.

The role of landscape amenities in regional development: Evidence from Swiss municipality data

Several recent regional and migration studies have identified landscape amenities as potentially important drivers of migration and local economic change in the United States. To date, these empirical approaches have rarely been applied to European data in spite of an impressive European cultural landscape heritage. Here, we apply a regional adjustment model to data from 2467 municipalities in Switzerland to examine how landscape amenities and related policies affected regional development along with fiscal, demographic and infrastructure variables in the period from 1995 to 2005. In the population equation, the coefficients of the standard variables show a consistent pattern that parallels the findings of earlier work. Moreover, we find that population was positively affected by closeness to major lakes and by abundance of open space. However evidence on positive effects of traditional landscape elements such as extensive orchards and vineyards is limited. Furthermore, municipalities with national heritage townscapes grew less than those without, while the density of hiking trails had no significant effect. In the employment equation, employment was consistently affected by demographic factors and accessibility but not by the landscape amenity variables, except that employment grew less in municipalities that are part of an inventory of nationally significant landscapes. The lack of measurable local benefits from nationally significant landscapes and townscapes suggests that policies to preserve these amenities should be implemented and financed by the national government.

Validating Planning Heritage: Evidence and Reasoning for National Heritage Recognition of The ‘City of Adelaide Plan’ and Park Lands

The Adelaide Park Lands and the ‘City of Adelaide Plan’ (1837), as prepared by Colonel William Light, have long been held up as an international precedent in town planning literature. The celebrated model, embraced by Ebenezer Howard to describe his Garden City theory, has several layers of cultural landscape heritage. The ‘Plan’, in recent years, has been subject to a rigorous investigation of its Indigenous and colonization evolutionary layers to inform moves to list the landscape as possessing national heritage status under relevant Australian heritage regimes, and more recently under the National Heritage List regime, as a pre-emptive strategy towards an eventual World Heritage nomination of the cultural landscape and ‘Plan’.

A Practical Approach for Evaluating Cultural Heritage Landscapes: Lessons From Rural Ontario

The identification and conservation of cultural heritage landscapes (CHL) is becoming a standard part of planning practice. In Ontario, Canada, the provincial government issued a directive in 2005 to mandate protection of CHLs. Since that time, local and regional planners have been active, operationalizing CHL identification and developing appropriate land use regulations for their preservation. This article uses the study of a a rural landscape centred on the last surviving covered bridge in Ontario to illustrate how focus groups and web-based participation can be used to establish the significance of an area and to build recommendations for its designation and protection.

The Gomti Riverfront in Lucknow, India: Revitalization of a Cultural Heritage Landscape

Historic Lucknow was oriented to the Gomti riverfront with monumental architecture of mosques, mausoleums and palaces concentrated on the southern bank. Thus the river was much more than a transportation artery enjoyed for its views and breezes and appreciated for its utility. This elite riverfront landscape was transformed into backwaters and disappeared from the public eye over time. Its centrality as a landscape of power was lost as a result of the momentous political and economic changes, beginning with the Indian Uprising/Mutiny in 1857. Although efforts are currently underway to beautify the riverfront by lining it with parks and plazas, they do not explicitly evoke the historic landscape and are piecemeal efforts to provide greenery. The paper outlines an urban conservation model and suggests design interventions that would revitalize the riverfront and contribute towards preserving both tangible and intangible heritage of the city.