Landscape Heritage Research Articles

Research on Landscape Renewal Strategies for the Relic Site of Wuxi Maoxin Flour Mill Based on Extentics

As the epitome of urban industrial civilization, urban industrial heritage has important social, historical, technological, aesthetic and other multiple values. How to rationally update and reuse it has become an important part of the urban development process. This paper takes the relic site of Wuxi Maoxin Flour Mill as an example. Through site inspection and questionnaire distribution, it explores its spatial status and existing problems from a landscape perspective, uses multiple regression analysis to obtain relevant influencing factors, use Extension innovation methods to deal with site contradictiory problems and generate multiple update strategies, and finally select the most appropriate update strategy through the superiority evaluation method. Using qualitative and quantitative research methods, a more scientific and targeted renewal plan is proposed to provide methodological reference for industrial heritage landscape renewal research.

The “In-Between” Development and Heritage

Batroun is a historic Mediterranean coastal city in North Lebanon and exemplar for long-term impact of haphazard urban expansion on (in-)tangible heritage. The long-term development of transport infrastructure has contributed to Batroun’s contemporary urban structure and the weak connections between its entities and with the sea. As a result, Batroun’s old town is gradually disconnecting from the coastline and inland developments, and its traditional socioeconomic practices are declining. This has triggered negative spatial, social and economic outcomes on the town’s public spaces and identity.This paper, therefore, seeks to evaluate the impact of infrastructural development on the social, economic, and spatial aspects of the historic town of Batroun. It investigates the opportunities that arise from the city’s cultural heritage landscape and how these opportunities inform revitalising the lost socio-economic values and identity of the old town. For this purpose, field observations were conducted to investigate Batroun’s urban and spatial setting. Also, Interviews were conducted with stakeholders, experts and local communities in order to define problems and their impact on (in-)tangible heritage from top-down and bottom-up perspectives. By mapping findings, this research assesses the consequences of a developed transport infrastructure on everyday life and the town’s historic built environment.The heritage of Batroun has been seen as a barrier to the city’s development, and the regeneration of the old town has largely focused on the preservation of tangible dimensions, ignoring the contribution of intangible heritage settings to the revival of the old town and its socio-economic practices. Understanding Batroun’s heritage capacities and contemporary social values can facilitate the way for local stakeholders and communities to inform the revitalisation process. Thus, inclusive and collaborative approaches and new tools of inclusion can improve heritage-informed regeneration strategies and help define appropriate infrastructure for a resilient development of the historic built environment.

System ochrony zabytków – studium ewolucji w latach 1918–2023

The system for the protection of historical monuments has evolved continuously. Its origins in the Polish lands date back to the time of the Partitions of Poland. They are connected with the distinctiveness of the approach to "memento" in the Austrian, Prussian and Russian partitions. The Austrian partition was dominated by a collegial mode for resolving conservation issues and the use of public opinion. This model was largely the basis for the creation of the preservation system in 1918, in free Poland. In the course of 105 years, its organisation and functioning have changed many times. It still requires constant improvement and reflection in such dynamically changing social, political, scientific and technical conditions. These are not the only factors that indicate the directions in which change is sought. The social factor is also important, evident both in the need to protect monuments and in the increasingly strong need for broadly interpreted care for monuments, contemporary cultural assets and cultural and landscape heritage. The legal factor, related to the codification of the issues of monument protection, building law and space conditions, was and is also extremely important. A 'standardisation' and integration of the system of protection of monuments and cultural heritage seems to be needed. It may also be worth considering a so-called Conservation Code that would standardise the whole issue.

Giovanni Carbonara architect, historian, theorist

The paper aims to remember the scientific and human contributions of Giovanni Carbonara. He was a professor emeritus of Restoration, and the director of the School of Specialisation in Restoration of Monuments (now, Architectural and Landscape Heritage), in which he lavished his high intellectual and human value with courage and respect. His students have taken up his teachings in various activities, from teaching to research, and professional works. Since the Seventies of the 20th Century, his research has touched many fields of conservation, analytical study, protection, education, and management of cultural heritage. He was an intellectual also involved in various institutional fields for conservation. He was concerned with looking at the teachings of the past with an eye focused on the updates and new developments in the restoration’s thought. He was a promoter of the ‘critical-conservative’ line of restoration.

Determinants of subjective outdoor thermal comfort in an urban historic and cultural heritage landscape in Xi’an, China

ABSTRACT In this study, we investigated factors related to subjective outdoor thermal comfort in the Ancient Ming Dynasty Walled City in Xi’an, China. Environmental data were collected from study sites by microclimate monitoring. Survey locations, demographics, psychological characteristics, thermal sensation vote (TSV), and thermal comfort vote (TCV) data were collected from 639 individuals in a questionnaire survey. Generalized linear regression analysis and path analysis were used to understand the associations between the TSV, environmental and psychological factors, and TCV. We found that green space locations, higher age, and greater subjective well-being and environmental satisfaction were associated with increased TCV. The universal thermal climate index was associated with TCV, and this association could have been affected by the individual’s psychological state. Our findings suggest that environmental factors and psychological factors had non-negligible effects on the subjective thermal comfort of individuals located in an open urban area with historical and cultural significance.

‘Thousand Years of Charm’: Exploring the Aesthetic Characteristics of the Mount Tai Landscape from the Cross-Textual Perspective

With accelerating urbanization, Mount Tai is increasingly at risk of homogenization with other scenic spots, losing its landscape aesthetic characteristics as ‘the Most Revered of the Five Sacred Mountains’, which poses a growing threat to the long-term sustainable development of Mount Tai. Accordingly, this study takes texts written by different social groups as the research material and analyses the aesthetic themes and spatial distribution of the elements in the texts to determine the aesthetic characteristics of the Mount Tai landscape from multiple perspectives and long time series. This study complements the research on the Mount Tai landscape, which focuses on specific research material and time. The results of the study can help to raise awareness of the complexity and multiple values of Mount Tai landscapes and have implications for research and practice of other heritage landscapes.

Cultural landscape as heritage: proposals for Ukraine from the experience of certain European countries

Formulation of the problem. Ukraine has a vast and uniquely diverse cultural landscape potential. However, the state of the landscapes, which has long been a matter of public concern, has deteriorated many times over as a result of russia's full-scale armed aggression against Ukraine. At the same time, Ukraine is far behind in implementing the commitments made by the European and international community in a number of international documents on the preservation of cultural landscapes. The purpose of the article. The purpose of this publication is to develop proposals for the implementation of the concept of cultural landscape in the field of protection and preservation of cultural and natural heritage on the basis of fulfilling Ukraine's relevant international obligations and introducing the best mechanisms and practices of European countries. Methodology and results. The research methodology is based on a descriptive qualitative and comparative approach, which made it possible to reveal the peculiarities of the experience of preserving the cultural landscape as a heritage in certain EU countries - representatives of the “old Europe” (Italy and Spain), post-socialist (Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic) and post-Soviet (Latvia and Lithuania) space. The European experience was studied through the prism of meeting the requirements of the European Landscape Convention and the possibilities of its practical application in Ukraine. The analysis of examples of practical implementation of the concept of cultural landscape by European countries in comparison with domestic practice in Ukraine made it possible to identify the main problems in this area and to outline indicative directions of a possible strategy for their solution, the main mechanisms, tools and specific measures for their implementation. The first step in the development of such a strategy could be the development and adoption by government decree of a National Action Plan for the Protection and Preservation of the Cultural Landscape Heritage of Ukraine. The overall goal of this plan for the next 5-10 years should be to ensure the protection, preservation and careful use of the country's cultural landscapes by: bringing the country's legislation into line with the EU system of legal and regulatory standards for landscape protection, regulation and planning; taking these issues into account in the formulation and implementation of state cultural, environmental and urban planning policies and including them as an integral part of the strategy for Ukraine's post-war reconstruction; raising public awareness and involving communities. Scientific novelty and practical significance. The novelty of the study is the identification of the main areas of action for the protection and preservation of the cultural landscape heritage of Ukraine and the development of concrete proposals for their filling with appropriate measures. Acknowledgement. The research is financed by the European Union NextGenerationEU from the funds of the Recovery and Resilience Plan mechanism within the project "Scholarships for outstanding researchers threatened by the military conflict in Ukraine" No. 09І03-03-V01-00021. This article is one of the results of the research within the framework of grant no. 2/0043/23 "Identification of landscape diversity and its changes in Slovakia based on remote sensing data in the context of the European Green Deal" supported by the Slovak Scientific Grant Agency VEGA.

Research on the Conservation and Utilization of Landscape Heritage in Modern Urban Parks in Shenyang, China

The transition analysis and type division of landscape heritage are the effective management methods to achieve the overall conservation and targeted utilization of modern urban parks. In this study, Shenyang Zhongshan Park, the first modern urban park in Shenyang, was taken as the research object to explore the historical and cultural value of modern urban parks in Northeast China. The current status and transition characteristics of landscape heritage were analyzed, and the landscape heritage types were divided by their conservation and utilization evaluations. A total of 44 landscape heritages existed in Shenyang Zhongshan Park, including three categories, i.e., 15 historic sites, 20 cultural comprehensive sites, and 9 natural sites. Based on the IPA model, the landscape heritage was further divided into three subcategories, i.e., already designated for conservation (ADC), should be designated for conservation (SDC), and should be restricted scale (SRS). ADC was composed of one historic (Chiyoda water tower), two cultural comprehensive (water sources), and three natural (ancient trees) landscape heritages. SDC was a landscape heritage with long construction age, high importance, poor conservation, and high utilization, which can represent the cultural characteristics of the park and the need to speed up the improvement of its protection system. SRS weakened the cultural characteristics of the park. Its construction intensity should be reduced to highlight the core themes of the park (i.e., historical and cultural themes). In the future, modern urban parks should be conserved and utilized based on identifying different landscape heritage types. This study provides a theoretical basis for the management and development of modern urban parks from the perspective of conservation and utilization of landscape heritage.

Target points as survey locations: Touristic Potentiality Index of the Burgos province

This work analyzes an inventory of the touristic resources of the province of Burgos (Spain) and identifies with it the municipalities with the greatest touristic attraction, thus identifying the target points that facilitate the planning of the fieldwork process to obtain the opinion of tourists. To provide an analytical approach, this study adopts a quantitative technique by constructing a weighted synthetic index following a hierarchical process. The results show that the province of Burgos stands out for its high natural or landscape heritage, with access through minor roads and with a high offer of hotels and rural houses as well as restaurants and cafeterias. Fairs declared of interest, access by rail and the offer of hostels, apartments and campsites offer fewer outstanding values. The work proposes the realization of around 383 observations in each of the eight target points identified. The results obtained are clear enough to motivate decision-makers to address their efforts and investments in improving and adjusting their strategies to increase the quality of offer and demand in the touristic sector.

Linking Cultural and Postindustrial Heritage with Potential Economic Activities—A Proposal to Revitalize a Demographically Degraded Area in Spain

Mining and quarrying were important economic activities in Europe in past centuries, but during the 20th century, raw materials became vital to societal development. Mining has been subject to fluctuations related to wars, economic crises, and advances in environmental rights. A series of events led some European countries, such as Spain, to assume a leading position in the market for certain raw materials, such as tungsten. However, most of Europe’s mines have been abandoned. This paper considers several postindustrial heritage sites that can used to illustrate how metal and stone were extracted in past centuries. Such sites have become a tourist attraction in the context of heritage in some countries. This area in western Spain, which contains ancestral quarries that helped build the architectural heritage of UNESCO World Heritage Cities and artisanal mines that contributed to building the economy of an extremely poor population, has a story to tell. All these mines and quarries can be used to explain the cultural heritage of the area as part of a postindustrial heritage landscape.

Learning from the countryside: Designing in Chinese rural-urban areas

The current transformation of the countryside in the rural hinterland of Chinese city regions faces challenges in conserving an extensive architectural and landscape heritage. The villages situated in these regions represent the historical core of metropolitan areas. By examining the hinterland territories, we can readily recognize the features of the Chinese urban-rural continuum that G. W. Skinners has defined in his studies spanning from the 1940s to the 1970s on rural marketing networks, cities, and the hierarchy of the local system. These local systems present a morphology that continually adapts to geographical and cultural contexts, offering rich architectural and rural urbanism solutions that seamlessly harmonize the urban and rural functions. Today, this part of the settlement is extremely vulnerable to the pressure of urban expansion as towns evolve into cities and cities transform into metropolitan regions. The conventional top-down planning practice in these areas lacks innovative tools capable of integrating both “urban” and “rural” features simultaneously. Scholars such as M. Davis and G. Guldin have recognized the Chinese hybrid rural-urban settlement as a potentially “new form of settlement for humanity” (Guldin, 1997). In this article, we present a holistic design approach aimed at shaping this hybrid settlement into a “green city,” applying the model we first used in 2010 – 2013 in Huiyang in the Pearl River Delta, a region characterized by Hakka villages territorial system, to two other cases in city regions: Pidu in the Chengdu metropolitan area and Kandun in the Ningbo metropolitan area. These regions are characterized by their respective Lin Pan and Seawalls territorial systems, which we have more recently studied. The aim of the paper is to illustrate how drawing inspiration from local countryside architecture and rural urbanism enables the development of individual planning solutions as an alternative to the current planning practice in peri-urban rural areas, which tends to homogenize countryside landscapes to urban blocks.

POTENTIALS OF INTERACTIVE WEBSITE IN IMPROVING VISITORS’ AWARENESS ON LANDSCAPE HERITAGE

Abstract: The development of interactive websites plays an increasingly important role in landscape heritage and edutourism, revolutionising how visitors interact with and learn about historical and cultural sites. However, most websites on heritage sites only have basic features, whereas the maps only show the locations of the attractions. This study focuses on developing an interactive website that incorporates interactive maps and illustrated narratives to promote the landscape heritage of Taiping, Malaysia for edutourism. The study examines how these elements work together to improve visitors' knowledge and awareness of Taiping's heritage values. Through a mixed-methods approach involving content design process, website design and user experience surveys on 354 respondents, the study evaluates the effectiveness of the interactive website on visitors' learning experiences and appreciation of heritage. Findings highlight the increased awareness of the heritage values of Taiping from the combined approach in fostering deeper connections, self-guided learning, and immersive exploration. The study's contribution lies in its insights into the potential of an integrated interactive website to reshape edutourism, creating dynamic digital platforms that enhance the synergy between modern technology, cultural heritage, and experiential learning.
 Keywords: Interactive Maps; Heritage; Landscape; Tourism; Website Design

Bastard Rock, Bastard Landscapes

Inspired by a type of quarrying waste nicknamed “bastard rock”, this paper uses the concept “bastard” as an analogy for industrial heritage landscapes: conceptually and physically difficult, inherently hybrid and comprised of contested lineages and inheritances. Advocating for relational landscape approaches in heritage management, this paper also addresses the exclusion of active industry from UNESCO World Heritage cultural landscapes and buffer zones, using the case study of Penrhyn Quarry in The Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales as an example of when “one-size-fits-all” heritage management strategies risk diminishing the cultural heritage they seek to preserve for future generations.

Representation and Visualization Processes for a Sustainable Approach to Landscape/Heritage

This paper intends to focus on the modes and forms of representation for a novel and sustainable approach to landscape/heritage, to those “tangible and intangible landscapes”, which are also called “emerging landscapes of heritage”. The long tradition of landscape description is grounded in visibility/objectivity terms as well as on nature/history. Nowadays, a sustainable approach to landscape/heritage should also carefully describe the participatory processes in recognizing, enhancing, and sharing meaningful values for a community. Starting with the Icomos recommendations about heritage modes of representation, this paper extends the research question to landscape/heritage where there are required methodologies that take into consideration both visible and objective aspects for depicting the interactions of people and territory, and its “becoming”. This contribution will therefore outline the main forms adopted today for the visualization and communication of the landscape that can monitor human and physical processes in progress and that, while being in continuity with the idea of landscape rooted in the West on the intangible aspect of “visibility”, they also need to be increasingly performative in describing the territorial and tangible complexity of dynamics and phenomena on a large scale.

Scene clusters, causes, spatial patterns and strategies in the cultural landscape heritage of Tang Poetry Road in Eastern Zhejiang based on text mining

The burgeoning field of digital humanities has provided important modern technological means for text mining in literary works. Chinese classical poetry, as a treasure in the world’s artistic treasury, holds significant value in recognizing the heritage of world culture. In this study, taking the 1589 Tang poems from the Tang Poetry Road in Eastern Zhejiang as an example, we constructed a research framework that explores the aesthetics of classical Chinese poetry landscapes and spatial imagery at the urban agglomeration scale by utilizing geographic and analytical tools such as Python programming, Gephi co-occurrence semantic networks, and GIS kernel density analysis. The framework exhibits three key innovations: (1) a text processing approach that treats individual characters as semantic units in ancient poetry texts, (2) a combined approach of Python programming techniques and Gephi visualization tool for social network analysis, and (3) a study focusing on the integration of textual and spatial aspects of literary landscape heritage corridors at the urban cluster scale. The constructed framework greatly enhances the efficiency and accuracy of Tang poetry text mining, it enables the extraction of natural and cultural landscape spatial imagery along the Tang Poetry Road, the construction of scene depictions, the identification of key regions within the scenes, and the derivation of location-specific strategies. This study broadens the scope of exploring the cultural heritage value of Tang poetry literature and provides practical guidance for the development of cross-regional heritage corridors.

When the whole-nation system meets cultural heritage in China

ABSTRACT In this article, we explore how China mobilised its unique whole-nation system (juguo tizhi) to become a global cultural power, focusing on the encounter between Chinese and global heritage discourses. This article is based on field ethnography of three World Heritage sites in Hangzhou, China: The West Lake Cultural Landscape, the Grand Canal of China, and the Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City. The juguo tizhi is a hierarchical system mobilised to achieve national goals. In the process of China’s ‘successful’ inscribing of cultural heritage sites based on juguo tizhi, we suggest that Chinese heritage discourses are compromised, and grassroots discourses are overshadowed. The juguo tizhi reinforces statist narratives more than it protects Chinese culture, which, we argue, is linked to the tensions between cultural and national nationalism. Furthermore, we suggest that China is now moving beyond the compromising Chinese heritage discourse phase to align with global heritage discourse, and has begun to present the Chinese discourse internationally, where the juguo tizhi is mobilised. It will be noteworthy to observe how this occurrence will affect China and the global heritage landscape in the future.

Sustainable cultural heritage landscape: an imaginary journey inside the veins of deserts

IntroductionTravel narratives are very attractive sources that examine the destination from the point of view of tourists with different attitudes. A group of studies has been conducted on travel narratives, but this type of analysis has been done very little in Iran despite their potential.Methods11 Persian qanats (PQs) have been recognized as UNESCO World Heritage sites. Visitors who explore the qanats as conduits of the desert have extraordinary experiences that can seem like captivating fiction. The main focus of the current research is on the narratives of tourists who have visited these PQs. Qualitative and narrative analysis methods were used to avoid relying on numerical data.ResultsThe study includes 30 participants who had visited the qanats and shared their travel stories. The study findings show that Persian qanats are a distinctive draw for foreign tourists that can leave a lasting impression.DiscussionThe PQs listed as a UNESCO World Heritage property are one of the unique attractions of Iran’s tourism, so far its tourism potential has been less noticed, and qanat tourism is a nascent branch of tourism in Iran. The narratives of travelers can be instrumental in promoting this invaluable groundwater engineering heritage.

Poetry, paths, and peatlands: integrating poetic inquiry within landscape heritage research

On the first page of The making of the English landscape, W.G. Hoskins states that ‘poets make the best topographers’. This speaks to the long-standing expression of human feelings, understandings, and experiences of landscape through poetry. In this article, I build from this idea of poetry as a way to write about landscapes to explore how poetic inquiry can be a powerful and appropriate method to research landscapes and their heritage. Using examples from my own research practice of the creation of new poems through a process called poetic transcription, I argue that poetic inquiry is an, as-yet, under-used approach within landscape heritage research. Furthermore, poetry’s capacity to express the plural, affective, sensorial, and subjective dimensions of engagement with landscapes and their heritage offers potential within studies informed by phenomenological and more-than-representational perspectives.

Incorporating sparse model machine learning in designing cultural heritage landscapes

Managing, protecting, and the evolutionary development of historical landscapes require robust frameworks and processes for forming datasets and advanced decision support tools. Despite the great potential, using pattern language, machine learning, and regenerative and generative design tools has yet to be adopted in historic landscape research due to the need for suitable training datasets. To address this theoretical and technical gap, this paper describes a three-step workflow, namely photogrammetry, feature extraction and discriminative feature analytics, to help facilitate the use of advanced ML tools for cultural heritage decision support. Sparse-Learning-Modelling (SLM) was used to help with feature extraction from small datasets. The developed tool was successfully tested on the 3D point cloud models of 13 heritage sites, and these could be replicated in other heritage sites with distinctive Cultural DNA worldwide. The findings of this research can extend the discourse of adopting advanced AI/digital tools in heritage landscape design.

Heritage-making, landscapes, and experiences in tension in the Southern Andes mountains, Argentina

ABSTRACT This paper employs the concepts of heritage-making, communal identity formation, and landscape production to analyse the spaces that contribute to local, provincial, and national identities. Specifically, we examine how these spaces, now valued for their natural and historical significance, shape contemporary collective identity. Our study is located in the Andes mountain range, in an area called Manzano Histórico, in central- western Argentina, which is part of a larger nature reserve created to protect the headwaters of the basin and mountain areas from large-scale economic projects. This paper utilises a qualitative methodology that combines archaeological and historical studies with ethnographic techniques and a survey to describe and analyse the millennial occupation of the region. This continuous occupation has been shaped by multiple ways of inhabiting the world, some dominant and others marginalised or made invisible, resulting in ongoing present-day tensions. The heritage landscape proposed is a partial result of these tensions, a textured, fractured, and patched product of diverse, historically enabled practices. By analysing these spaces, we aim to acknowledge the various ways of being in the world that intersect within them, as well as the identity formations of alterity that hierarchise or invisibilise these practices.