Preservation Of Urban Heritage Research Articles

Development of an automated urban heritage monitoring tool: Between a techno-fix and fallacy

The preservation of urban heritage is one of the main challenges for contemporary society and an important task for governments. The administration of urban heritage preservation (UHP) requires effective methods, as well as sufficient material and human resources. The administrative practice of UHP is embedded in the relevant regulatory framework, which comprises legislative and normative acts at municipal, national, and international levels. The scale and range of heritage objects to be monitored, the complex statutory basis of the regulatory framework, and the traditionally low human and material resources of city administrations all contribute to the ineffectiveness of UHP practice in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Vilnius.Advances in technologies such as 3D spatial scanning and AI-based image processing offer the promise of a technological fix to the ineffective administrative practice. In this paper, we present a grounded design study aimed at developing a technology prototype for an automated urban heritage risk monitoring tool. Originally conceived as a techno-fix to the inefficiency of administrative practice, the prototype development reveals tensions and stumbling blocks within digitalisation efforts. Using the analytical lens of the Trifecta model of IT-based regulation, the case study examines the interaction between technological and administrative domains in shaping technology design choices.Based on this case study, we critique the notion that IT is perceived as capable of providing “techno-fix” solutions to tasks requiring reflective human decision-making, especially when such solutions are expected to be effective without first redesigning the entire organisational system. The paper concludes with a discussion on the limits of automating administrative practices and identifies specific avenues for further research into the digitalisation of urban heritage preservation.

Gentrification and touristification in urban heritage preservation: threats and opportunities

Gentrification and touristification in urban heritage preservation: threats and opportunities

Towards a bottom-up approach for collaboration in cultural heritage: the case of the Council for British Research in the Levant (CBRL) Amman Institute and the JEA's Urban Heritage Preservation Committee

Since the 19th century, Jordan, with its diverse and rich heritage, has been a thriving hub for international scholars and researchers. To further this pursuit, several international research institutes have been established in the country. This article showcases the partnership between the Council for British Research in the Levant (CBRL) Amman Institute, an international institute whose research topics include archaeology and heritage, and the Jordan Engineers Association’s Urban Heritage Preservation Committee. Their collaboration aimed to attract architects and increase their interest and knowledge of Jordan’s heritage, in theory and practice, by designing a comprehensive programme of activities. These activities included a training course, webinars, a heritage award, heritage walks and heritage days. By considering the specific interests of the audience, and leveraging the knowledge and experience of both partners, they were able to collaborate with over 18 organizations in 9 events. The success and expansion of this partnership can be attributed to several factors, such as a wide range of activities, inclusive topics, bilingualism and efficient communication tools.

Protecting the historical city – urban regeneration in Eastern Germany during the 1990s as a starting point for a sustainable urban development?

ABSTRACT Since the 1970s, the existing historical building stock gained more value. Monument protection was gradually introduced in the urban planning process as were its methods and instruments. Approaches for an urban development based on the existing building stock were made in both former german countries, GDR (German Democratic Republic) and FGR (Federal Republic of Germany), even if the extent was different. Especially with the regeneration of the historical old towns in the GDR beginning in late 1989, early 1990, the preservation of urban architectural heritage formally became an integrated part of urban development strategies in united Germany. The adaption and development of instruments to protect and develop historical city centres is part of the research project ‘Stadtwende’, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Surveys based on the results of qualitative expert interviews and archive research show that the ‘turn’ (Wende) in 1989 had an impact on the development of a planning practice that took the existing building stock into account. With regard to recent trends the paper shows the historical genesis of the preservation of urban heritage in urban planning and asks to what extent it could support a resource-saving urban development today.

Urban Heritage and Tourism Development, Role of Civil Society Institutions “Deshra of Menaa” in Aures Region, Algeria

This study aims at understanding the role of civil society institutions and their initiatives in the preservation of urban heritage in Algeria. In fact, Algeria’s urban heritage is subject to a serious deterioration in several benchmarks that are affected by several issues threatening the balance of its social and economic development. Moreover, given the importance of preserving heritage areas due to their national wealth and the historical, cultural, economic and social values they represent, and the general trend towards the growth of the tourism industry and its economic benefits, it is increasingly urgent to find a balance between the protection of urban heritage and the tourism development. The main principles of sustainable tourism development are the involvement of civil society institutions and the local population in the development process by raising awareness, engaging the local inhabitants in tourism activities and providing sustainable tourism projects that generate incomes. Indeed, volunteering social work is one of the most important development factors in today's societies. To conduct this study, first the urban heritage situation in Dashrat Manaa was anlayzed, and then conducted a field survey in form of a questionnaire. The authors of the study performed a statistical analysis of the collected data and interpreted the results.

Digitization of Urban Heritage Preservation Practices for Vilnius City

For UNESCO Heritage site Vilnius City, urban heritage preservation (UHP) is an important task aimed at monitoring various risks associated with preservation of heritage valuables in urban heritage areas. Those valuables can be small and large, tangible and intangible: building façade, building doors, windows, roof elements, gates, panorama view on a heritage site, heights of the building, volumes of the building, etc. Risks to heritage valuables may vary from gradual and cumulative processes (such as age-related degradation) to sudden and catastrophic events (such as floods, fires, or armed conflict). There are also risks connected to the intentional or unintentional destruction of cultural heritage. Those usually are the cases of city infrastructure development and purposeful rebuilding of the heritage objects.

Novel Technologies as Potential Catalyst for Democratizing Urban Heritage Preservation Practices: The Case of 3D Scanning and AI

The conflict between heritage protection and urban infrastructure development rationales creates a context for inclusion, participation and dialogue of different heritage-related communities. However, developed in the pre-computer age of administrative practice, are often incapable, partially or completely, to accommodate the ‘new-era’ community oriented participatory practices. In this article, authors discuss the mutual effects of IT in the process of democratization of urban heritage preservation. The authors create and argue the conceptual model of distributed ledger technologies (DLT) in participatory UHP. The model demonstrates how technologies can become catalysts for democratization in situations when the regulatory and administrative change (on its own) is too inert. The article hypothesizes that novel technological developments which aim at or have the potential for increasing community involvement and democratization of administrative practice, exert their effects directly through technology-based participatory practices.

Reference Architecture for AI-based Urban Heritage Preservation Risks Monitoring Tool

Reference Architecture for AI-based Urban Heritage Preservation Risks Monitoring Tool

Public Perception Influence on the Reshaping Urban Heritage: A Case Study of Port Said Historic Quarters

Cultural heritage plays an important role in reshaping cities’ current morphologies, reinforcing public sense of belonging, cultural identity, and place authenticity. Port Said, the research case study, a former colonial city located at the edge of the Mediterranean Sea and the Suez Canal at the north east Egyptian coast, is struggling between new urban sprawl that obliterates its identity and urban heritage preservation. Port Said is an important logistic city distinguished by its unique urban heritage, facing a real threat of heritage obliteration. There is a continuous fight between nostalgic memories, modern life style dreams, and aimed economic benefit. Although there is an international developing agenda for the preservation of tangible urban heritage, the local community can barely interfere with reshaping of urban heritage in the modern society. It is urgent to create public awareness and heritage guardians in developing countries as the economic benefits strongly demolish heritage, ignoring their significance and peculiarity. This research aims to investigate the city’s historical and urban development with special emphasis on buildings’ visual characteristics and architectural features. Visual preference survey research methodology is used to study public perception influence toward reshaping city historical image. The current study employs both qualitative and quantitative tactics in data collection to examine the research hypotheses and to achieve organized and rational local perception about Egyptian building heritage development. Finally, conclusions are drawn about the joining of current public perception of the Port Said heritages, urban identity and city unique reshaping and development.

The role of building information modeling in the sustainable preservation of urban heritage

The importance of building information modeling (BIM) technology is due to the fact that it is a technology that combines information and digital technology, which are two of the most important requirements in the field of archeology in the current era. Which is known as the information age and the beginning of the fourth industrial revolution in the form of a 3D model with all the information. There is also a common link between BIM and the sustainability, achieving economic efficiency, environmental performance and social responsibility. This paper discusses the use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology in preserving archaeological buildings by recording and documenting archaeological buildings in 3D models, and using them in sustainable development by applying virtual archeology and reconfiguring buildings or artifacts on the computer in specific periods. , and using them to virtual museums and cultural tourism for this heritage.

Paint and decay: A colloquial conversation on preserving the urban heritage

This paper is an attempt to converse about urban heritage preservation and its experience. To converse is to colloquially discuss ideas that comes to mind while we are looking back at the 2019 photographs of some parts of Kota Tua Surabaya (The Old Town of Surabaya) and reflect upon our knowledge background, one of architecture, the other of history. This conversation is created through a form of creative writing, creative nonfiction, where we begin with our personal thoughts, one of experiencing ruination and the other of witnessing complexity of urban heritage preservation, one of decay and the other of paint. We involve relevant discourses and the use of visual materials such as collages, diagrams, and drawings as a form of visual inquiry and visual illustration, showing the interpretation, reality, and the imagination of fragments of Kota Tua Surabaya. The process involved in creating this conversation could be one of the ways to creatively build collaborative knowledge and have the writings and the visual materials based on personal voice, expanding the academic form of writings.

A tale of two cities: The fate of Delhi as UNESCO World Heritage

AbstractThis article examines the trajectory and fate of Delhi’s Imperial Capital Cities nomination, submitted to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2015 for inscription on the World Heritage List. I employ the dossier and events surrounding its withdrawal to reveal the political imbrications of urban conservation, international institutions, neoliberal governance, and colonial histories. First, I underscore the prominence of India as a member of the World Heritage Committee and its efforts to secure an increasing number of UNESCO properties. Second, I situate the dossier within the ambit of neoliberal governance that recalibrates and promotes urban heritage preservation, while similarly encouraging development and economic growth. Building upon this point, I consider how sustained government efforts to reframe Delhi as a “global city,” coupled with the identification of Delhi’s imperial capitals with Mughal and British rule, resulted in the dossier’s withdrawal. Third, the episode reveals tensions in this specific political moment over contemporary perceptions of imperial occupation and “foreign” empires, which plagued the dossier from the outset and continue to reverberate today. Finally, there are lessons to be learned for urban heritage in India and Asian heritage in general, outside the narrow purview of European cities, so many of which are already listed as World Heritage.

Tradición Arquitectónica, Identidad y Globalización: el problema de la homogeneización del paisaje construido

When practicing urbanism, architecture and architectural and urban heritage preservation there is a growing concern on the conservation of the essential characters of the cultural landscape to be transformed, particularly when they come from its local traditions. This concern is still to find the place it deserves in the curriculum of the architecture and urbanism educational programs. Being so, it is necessary to reflect on the nature of this problem in order to successfully undertake this task. As far as the till now constant and progressive disappearance of traditional building, architecture and urbanism goes on, the relevance of preserving those characters will continue its growth. Nevertheless, as basic and commonly used key concepts to deal with this problem as tradition, globalization and local identity are frequently ambiguously or incorrectly used in this field. This paper intends to contribute to a better understanding and a more correct definition of these concepts when applied to our built environment.

Mega-events and the Preservation of Urban Heritage: Literature Gaps, Potential Overlaps, and a Call for Further Research

Despite mega-events being long perceived as great opportunities by urban policy makers, several cities have recently withdrawn bids for the Olympic games. The disconnect between the planning of mega-events and the urban environment is a reoccurring argument in public debate, but missing in research. In this article, we consider how the relationship between mega-events and urban heritage has been discussed in literature, examining the gaps and potential overlaps, why they exist, and further argue the need to bridge disciplines. In conclusion, we outline new perspectives for studying and learning from the crossroad of the two policy fields, namely, cultural mega-events.

Sustainability of Heritage Preservation in Academic Education of Architects in Lithuania

Research of urgent problems and new aspects of contemporary tendencies in architect education of the preservation of cultural heritage in Lithuania has been carried out by the team of Department of Architectural Fundamentals, Theory and Arts, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University. Within the framework of the Sustainable Rehabilitation of the Historic Towns in Europe” (SURE), project funded by EU with the collaboration among the Polish, Italian, Spanish and Lithuanian counterparts, Vilnius team has performed the research on the problems in emerging tendencies in the highest education on the preservation of the cultural heritage in Lithuania. The questionnaires for the opinion pooling were sent to the selected threefold type of the recipients: educational-scientific, public-state, and private-professional (Best Practices Handbook 2017). The research of enquire reflected devastating effect of recent processes of urban planning in Lithuania in the immovable cultural heritage area: neglect of cultural landscape value in urban planning of cities, concern of identity loss and negative impact of globalization, lack of proper maintenance and use of historic buildings. Contrary to these revealed problems plea of recent international strategic documents emphasize variety of ways of contribution of historic areas in bettering of urban life. Lack of ecological approach in urban heritage planning, tension between contents of academic programs and official aims of strategic documents ratified by the State, difference in expectations of theoreticians and practicing urban planners were revealed by the results of completed research. The differences in attitudes of academicians and professionals, i.e. inadequate reflection of urban heritage in urban planning processes, shortcomings in integrating of local communities into preservation processes and academic education of architects were clearly stated. Variety of important issues in relation with protection of cultural heritage and sustainability was unveiled in academic education of architects in Lithuania. Provided questionnaires and collected results of the answers, after the completed analysis of the education programs and expert survey disclosed the shortage of ecological knowledge in the field of cultural heritage protection. Considering revealed problems and needs integration of sustainability and urban heritage preservation should be proposed as one of major target for the improvement of existing educational system of architects in Lithuania. Primarily targets to be hit by the alteration of the situation would be the reduction of the lack of ecological approach in urban heritage planning, diminished tension between contents of academic programs and official aims of strategic documents ratified by State and lowered difference in expectations among the theoreticians and practicing urban planners. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.sace.21.4.19178

Promoting Urban Heritage Preservation through Partnerships

Promoting Urban Heritage Preservation through Partnerships

Challenging, but not Trouble-Making: cultural elites in China’s urban heritage preservation

Urban heritage preservation is gaining momentum in China as massive urban renovation has put many historical sites under threat. A group of renowned scholars, experts and artists have played an important role in leading and coordinating the movement. How do these cultural elites promote urban heritage preservation? How do they mediate state–society interactions and navigate the authoritarian regime to achieve their goals? This article explores how cultural elites take advantage of their intermediary position between officialdom and citizenry by not only mobilizing urban residents and the media to counter-balance the state, but also balancing different levels and sectors of the party-state against each other. Such a ‘double balance’ approach maximizes their influence within both the state and society, pushing forward the otherwise non-prioritized goal of heritage preservation.

Preservation and Conservation through Cultural Heritage Tourism. Case Study: Musi Riverside Palembang

Palembang is the center of political and economic power in Southeast Asia in the past and was visited by foreign traders from China, Middle East and Persia. This paper reveals the potential of cultural heritage tourism in Palembang and shows the role of tourism in urban heritage preservation and conservation. Cultural tourism creates jobs and new business opportunities and strengthens local economy. Cultural heritage tourism helps also to protect cultural heritage and to improve the quality of life of residents and visitors. Linking tourism with heritage and culture will benefit the local economy. The main idea in cultural heritage tourism is to save urban heritage and culture, to share it with visitors, and to reach economic benefits.

Historic Cities and the Venice Charter: Contributions to the Sustainable Preservation of Urban Heritage

The Preservation of Urban Heritage: An Idea from Modern TimesThe Opening statements of the International Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites-commonly known as The Venice Charter 1964-tell us about the scope and depth of its origins. They express the concern for history and its material expressions, which is:Imbued with a message from the past, the historic monuments of generations of people remain to the present day as living witnesses of their age-old traditions.1They articulate the universality of the values of this heritage.People are becoming more and more conscious of the unity of human values and regard ancient monuments as a common heritage.2With these considerations in mind, the charter articulates the challenge for architects and technicians of historic monuments gathered in 1964 in Venice as holding:The common responsibility to safeguard ... [the historic monuments] . .. for future generations . .. [and] ... to hand them on in the full richness of their authenticity.3In its conceptual makeup, the charter is a product of its time. It is strongly influenced by the ideals of the international movement in architecture and is the embodiment of a reaction to the romantic reconstruction and improvement approach used by the conservators of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This is evident in the charter's call for the recourse to all the sciences in the practice of conservation and restoration in Article 2, and it is also present in many of its detailed recommendations. A few are worth mentioning: the monuments should be intervened with minimally, and any intervention should show respect for the original materials (Article 9); and when interventions are needed, each should bear a clear contemporary stamp so as to differentiate it from the monument's original material(s) and/or design (Article 9).The charter also departed from the early tradition that focused on the preservation of an individual monument and recognized in Articles 1, 6, 7, and 14 that the preservation of a monument should also encompass the preservation of its setting. Moreover, it indicates in Article 5 that the preservation of a monument is facilitated if it is put to some socially useful purpose.4 The Venice Charter provided scholars and practitioners with internationally agreed upon principles to guide the preservation and restoration of ancient buildings, but allowed each country to apply the established principles within the framework of its own culture and traditions.Much has happened in fifty years and it is most appropriate to take a fresh look at the Venice charter. The focus here is to trace the charter's contribution to the study and practice of urban heritage preservation and the challenges that the profession currently faces. This endeavor, however, would be incomplete if no proper consideration were given to the different charters, norms, recommendations, conventions, resolutions, and other documents approved by ICOMOS and UNESCO in the last fifty years that expanded the scope of the international concern for our material and intangible heritage and provided guidelines for its preservation. The list is long and varied, each making its unique contribution to expand the scope of the concern for material heritage. This is the case for the Nara Document on Authenticity of 1994, which provides this broad perspective and stresses that authenticity is the essential, qualifying factor concerning the values of heritage. It specifies that authenticity includes the monument's form and design, materials and substance, use and function, traditions and techniques, location and setting, and spirit and feeling. Most of the other documents further expand the concepts of urban heritage preservation from individual monuments to neighborhoods and towns.The Preservation of Historic Neighborhoods and Towns: A Growing ConcernThe recommendations of the Burra Charter of 1979 extend beyond the individual monument and include the preservation of places of cultural significance. …

Aesthetic Politics and Heritage Nostalgia: Electrical Generating Superstations in the London Cityscape since 1927

Since they were first proposed in the 1920s and 1940s, there has been a significant relationship between central London’s gigantic power stations, Battersea and Bankside, and those concerned with safeguarding the capital’s ‘public face’ and its artistic and architectural treasures. Both plants were designed with technical compromises enforced on them by urban heritage preservation critics, and both were erected with the aesthetic considerations of London’s cityscape firmly in mind. Moreover, it was expected that good design — of the buildings themselves, and of the technology developed to mitigate their pollution — would minimize their negative aesthetic and environmental impact on the city. Later in the century, that good design would be upheld as something to itself preserve. Yet concerns about aesthetics, the possibilities of technological innovation and the importance of building conservation within the cityscape produced a number of ironies particular to these London landmarks that have wider implications for understanding the cultural politics of urban heritage preservation and urban renewal projects.