Access relative to need for community conservation funding in Australia

ABSTRACT

In a climate of scarce resources for heritage preservation, there is a need to develop principles and methodology for assessing and responding to inequity within the conservation sector. This paper focuses on spatial, or geographic, barriers as one factor determining the accessibility of conservation services. While the case study focuses on the conservation and management of collections of cultural material in Australia, the methodology is globally relevant for advancing the equitable distribution of heritage and conservation resources according to need. Using a statistical analysis of the spatial distribution of 1323 local heritage conservation projects that have been funded by the National Library of Australia’s Community Heritage Grants Program from 1994 to 2017, this study provides a measure of the spatial equality of conservation in Australia. Spatial distribution analysis indicates that the majority of projects funded are located in major cities, with fewer projects funded in regional, remote and very remote areas. An ‘access relative to need’ approach is proposed to counter the current centralisation of the conservation industry. Of particular relevance for international readers is the potential for this methodology to frame studies of the impacts on heritage resulting from climate change and extreme weather events.     

Modelling the heritage world: Economic,legal and political considerations

Abstract

The economic literature on heritage has primarily analysed the impact of building preservation on real‐estate values and community redevelopment. Recently, economists have expanded their study on heritage to include everything from historic buildings and antiques to museums and monuments. However, this research ignores the political and legal characteristics of heritage and is used primarily to justify government expenditures on heritage. The economic study of heritage should include a conceptual framework to explain the process through which certain artefacts acquire historic significance and value. This framework would provide guidance to establish which economic agents form part of the heritage world and what incentives guide them to join it. With this framework in place., we can evaluate how the tools used by these agents to obtain their own goals affect the provision of historic resources.     

Transitions in the Ottoman Waqf’s traditional building upkeep and maintenance system in Cyprus during the British colonial era (1878–1960) and the emergence of selective architectural conservation practices

How did the Waqf, a widespread Islamic historic institution in the non-Western world which promoted traditional building upkeep and maintenance systems, cope with the emerging architectural conservation understandings of the modern era? How did colonial transfers of knowledge, expertise and political considerations influence these systems? The present study explores these questions by examining the case of the Ottoman Waqf (Evkaf) institution in Cyprus. By collecting and analysing archival evidence on conservation projects, initiated during the British colonial period between 1878 and 1960, a model framework of initiation, authorisation and implementation processes of the upkeep of the Waqf maintained properties has been identified. This framework has been used to show the transitional role of the colonial influence at different stages, which finally led to the dissolution of the Waqf system’s sustainable elements, and initiated the emergence of selective architectural conservation practices. By shifting the focus of conservation discourses to look specifically into the background dynamics of the institutional practice, a new argument has been developed. This revealed how heritage conservation practices are negotiated with the existing institutions and how they are transferred and/or transformed at different levels of institutional governance.     

Our history is not false: perspectives from the revitalisation culture

Two dominant themes in architectural conservation doctrine are to (1) avoid the fabrication of ‘false’ histories through the clear differentiation of ‘new’ from ‘old’ building fabric; and (2) the deprecation of subjective ways in which the perception of building fabric engenders sense of place. This study explores the cultural values of a group of citizens engaged in revitalising their historic downtown through the ‘Main Street’ program in Anderson, South Carolina, United States. This ‘revitalisation culture’ values and promotes treatments to its historic environment that emphasise the conjectural fabrication of ‘historic’ elements to existing buildings and the use of historicised design for new, infill construction. Whilst these values go against the grain of conservation doctrine, the revitalisation culture is preserving a kind of authenticity that stems from socially and culturally constructed values in an effort to maintain the ability of the historic environment to engender ‘spontaneous fantasies’, which serve to emotionally attach the revitalisation culture with its historic downtown. Ultimately, the revitalisation culture is engaging in ‘unethical’ behaviour from the perspective of conservation professionals, which begs the question of whose values deserve attention and if the field of heritage conservation is able and willing to accept pluralistic concepts of how the authenticity of historic places can and should be conserved.     

Systematic continuous heritage recording in the field

Abstract

This paper is related to historic buildings and sites which represent a physical cultural environment most tangibly and also represent a majority of all the listed cultural heritage in all countries. The paper is particularly concerned with various techniques of recording information about the built heritage. This is commonly regarded as a one‐off record by field observation, but the author makes a case for recording to be a continuous process. Recording is not simply the first activity in the historic preservation process but an integral part of all phases. Despite the difficulty of defining objectives and evaluating results experience with the built heritage of the Czech Republic suggests that recording should be an on‐going, flexible and integral part of the conservation process. It is best carried out largely by recorders working within the Conservation Office.     

Sustainable architectural conservation according to traditions of Islamic waqf: the World Heritage–listed Stone Town of Zanzibar

Sustainability in the conservation of architectural heritage is now more extensively considered than it was decades ago. The introduction of the concept of sustainability to the field marked hopes to overcome problems threatening heritage sites. There are general concepts guiding sustainable conservation. However, heritage specifics play important roles in achieving sustainability, and may direct the formulation of sustainable concepts to be applied. This paper is an attempt to add to the discourse of heritage sustainability by discussing buildings managed through a tradition of Islamic waqf in the World Heritage Stone Town of Zanzibar. It examines sustainability in terms of its financial, social, managerial, and environmental aspects. The relatively good survival rate of waqf buildings in the old town over several centuries suggests sustainable and transmissible ‘genes’ within the tradition. Waqf was found to elaborate ways to strike a balance between heritage consumption and use, avoiding gentrification, and enabling collective urban conservation. It further suggests that sustainable conservation cannot avoid monetary sacrifices, and if it is to be sustainable in the long term it should be inherent in the heritage itself.     

The Rolt Memorial Lecture 2017: Conserving the Waterways Heritage

ABSTRACT

This article describes the work of the Canal & River Trust in managing and conserving the heritage assets and the wider historic environment of the Trust's waterways in England and Wales. Various types of heritage assets are described, and the ways in which these assets are managed, including via archaeological recording, along with conservation-led repairs to historic engineering structures and other historic waterway-related buildings, are considered. New directions that offer effective and efficient ways of dealing with heritage assets are examined.     

From verifiable authenticity to verisimilar interventions: Xintiandi,Fuxing SOHO,and the alternatives to built heritage conservation in Shanghai

ABSTRACT

The introduction of contemporary architecture into historic urban environments creates an open heritage discussion that includes the underlying relationship between development and conservation. This discussion requires theoretical clarification, as heritage conservation is frequently mistaken for other architectural design approaches that, even though they may operate within the historic environment as their primary source, do not comply with the complex definition of heritage authenticity used today. This article aimed to contribute to this debate, offering a characterization of such architectural design strategies operating through principles of verisimilitude that target authentication for tourists and the creative classes in a global city like Shanghai. Comparative studies of Xintiandi (Ben Woods, 2001) and Fuxing SOHO (Von Gerkan, Marg und Partner, 2015) provided an insight into the concepts of historic re-creation and abstract inheritance, currently used as ways of interpreting the historic residential typology of the Shanghai lilong according to the economic and political aims of the entrepreneurial model of governance. This allowed a critical evaluation of the growing attention paid to heritage in Shanghai in the last 25 years, and whether the substitution of the principle of authenticity for authentication has solved the contradictions between urban conservation and development in contemporary China.     

Does Adaptive Reuse Pay? A Study of the Business of Building Renovation in Ontario,Canada

Older buildings are important aesthetic, cultural and economic resources but in many jurisdictions hundreds of historic buildings have been demolished because developers and bankers argued that the cost of adapting them for new uses is too high. Still, a growing number of reputable developers are completing exciting projects featuring innovative building renovation. However, when particular development projects are presented to decision makers, generally only the developer/lender’s cost analyses are presented and, therefore, they are unable to make truly informed judgments. This study examines the business of heritage development, which consists of building renovation or adaptive reuse, in order to determine the characteristics of success. In Ontario, Canada, there exists a group of dynamic and creative investors with a passion for older buildings. Some reuse projects are more costly than new building but not all and the return on investment for heritage development is almost always higher. This has important implications in Ontario where recent legislative changes have finally given local councils the authority to prevent the demolition of listed buildings, but the lessons for other jurisdictions are also important.     

A Multidisciplinary Study on the Seismic Vulnerability of St. Agostino Church in Amatrice following the 2016 Seismic Sequence

ABSTRACT

The big earthquake of August 24, 2016 and subsequent major shocks severely damaged many historic villages in Central Italy and dramatically showed the intrinsic vulnerability of the diffused architectural heritage. The St. Agostino church is one of the collapsed historical buildings, being inside the epicentre village of Amatrice. During the long seismic earthquake swarm, progressively the church was damaged and monitored. This multidisciplinary study of the damage of the church includes correlations of all the data derived from three steps geomatics surveys (3D aerial and terrestrial models): the archival drawings and images documenting previous events distressing the building, the previous strengthening intervention, and finally the seismic site response analysis (from Amatrice’s accelerometric station). Through a back analysis carried out by a finite elements model, it was possible to understand the seismic vulnerability of this historical building, in relation to the previous interventions and damage events. The proposed methodology, based on the interdisciplinary data analysis, provides useful information for the next strengthening projects of damaged historical monument.     

Analysing Heritage Landscapes with Historical GIS: Contributions from problem-based inquiry and constructivist pedagogy

This article examines a practical classroom experience using GIS technologies to analyse aspects of a local heritage landscape. An inventory of historic buildings comprising architectural and construction details was revised in the field and then analysed using GIS software. Elements of the geographies of these buildings were displayed using thematic mapping and students used these maps to develop explanatory hypotheses and to suggest policy options for future management of the heritage landscape. Practically, the project demonstrated the contribution GIS can make to historical geography methods, engaged students in an externally supported research partnership working with real-world data, and suggested directions for local public policy formation. Pedagogically, the project demonstrated that historical GIS can be used effectively to shape problem-based inquiry and constructivist learning.     

An innovative methodology of assessing the climate change impact on cultural heritage

Climate change is expected to have a severe impact on cultural heritage in the future. This study presents the methodology developed during the FP7 project Climate for Culture, of assessing the climate change impact on collection objects in cultural heritage buildings. The main innovation lies in coupling new high resolution future climate projections with building simulation tools in order to predict future indoor climate and identify future risks in historic buildings. The case study is an intermittently heated wooden chapel in Croatia. The whole building simulation model of the chapel was validated using a newly developed method of accuracy assessment in the context of preventive conservation. Even though modeling intermittent heating induces limitations in the model, it can be used for computing of future indoor data. Future indoor climate data was assessed for possible risks of biological, mechanical, and chemical damage to painted wooden panels using the newly developed specific climate risk assessment. When using this method of damage assessment on buildings with active climate control, especially with intermittent heating, it is recommended to determine the relevant season for the damage process in order to objectively analyze results.     

Conserving by aesthetics,conserving by development: the rescaling and worlding of global south heritage

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the genealogy of rescaling the cultural armature of heritage in the Global South rooted within the colonial culture and postcolonial aid programs. Taking the case of historic Cairo, it explores how policies have developed through experimental practices of conservation to scale up authority, control, and power over residents and neighborhoods from the 19^th century to the present. The paper theorizes two paradigmatic approaches of conservation practices – by aesthetics and development – which have expanded Cairo’s inventory of monuments. The infatuation of heritage experts (the Comité de Conservation des Monuments de l’Art Arabe and Aga Khan Trust for Culture) with old neighborhoods has fostered accumulation by dispossession, disrupting people’s environments to generate a worlding image of heritage. The paper concludes with the metaphor of conservation practices as re-construction sites, as they repurpose the relationships between heritage, people, and their means of governmentality.     

The Conservation Programme of the Côa Valley Archaeological Park: Philosophy,Objectives and Action

Abstract

This paper outlines the methodology for the conservation of Côa Valley rock art, as carried out by the Côa Valley Archaeological Park Conservation Programme. It examines the overall conservation environment that has determined this approach, which aims at an understanding of all the factors affecting the survival of the Côa Valley heritage. We stress that although the Programme sets precise guidelines for the examination and testing of conservation work to mitigate the effects of complex weathering dynamics in action, there are no miraculous solutions to ensure the complete longterm in situ preservation of this World Heritage Site. Despite this geological impossibility, we also emphasize that in a human time scale it makes sense to try to conserve significant heritage (such as the Côa Valley rock art) that expounds and explains our history and ourselves.     

The Australian Historic Shipwreck Preservation Project: In situ Preservation and Long-Term Monitoring of the Clarence (1850) and James Matthews (1841) Shipwreck Sites

Increasingly, archaeologists are opting for on-site examination, reinterment, and in situ preservation of underwater cultural heritage sites as the first option in the management of sites at risk, as opposed to the more traditional excavation, recovery, conservation, and display/storage methods. This decision will inevitably be based on significance assessment, degree of perceived risk, and resourcing issues. However, long-term monitoring must become an integral part of these management programmes in order to quantitatively evaluate the effectiveness of the in situ preservation techniques employed. In 2012 the Australian Historic Shipwreck Preservation Project (AHSPP) was awarded a large Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Grant, enabling ten partner organizations and three Australian universities to collaborate in one of the largest multi-organizational maritime archaeology projects to be undertaken in Australia to date. One of the major aims of the project is to develop a protocol for the excavation, detailed recording and reburial of significant shipwrecks under threat, fostering a strategic national approach for the management of underwater cultural heritage (UCH) sites at risk. Two historically significant shipwreck sites that are considered under threat were chosen for this longitudinal comparative study — the Clarence (1850) located in Port Phillip Bay, Victoria; and the James Matthews (1841) which lies in Cockburn Sound, Western Australia. Both sites have been preserved in situ using two very different but innovative remediation strategies. More importantly, long-term monitoring programmes have been implemented on both sites, which will characterize changes in the reburial environment and the effect on the reinterred materials. In this way, the efficacy of both in situ preservation techniques will be systematically tested, providing a comparative analysis of practical protocols for the long-term protection and management of underwater cultural heritage.     

Partners in Preservation: University of Montreal Research for the Preservation of the Montreal School Board Historic Schools

Since 2000, the Master’s Programme in Conservation de l’Environnement Bâti (conservation of the built environment) of the Université de Montréal has been collaborating with the Commission Scolaire de Montréal (Montreal School Board) for the preservation of the city’s scholastic heritage. Research projects and other activities have been undertaken to raise awareness about these historic buildings and to find practical solutions to ensure their future. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, it will provide an overview of different research projects carried out within the framework of the partnership between the School Board and the master’s programme, concluding with the most important findings of that research. Second, it will describe the challenges facing the preservation of this vernacular public heritage, which—despite its modesty—is a significant part of the many neighbourhoods of Montréal.     

Measuring Learning Outcomes in Museums,Archives and Libraries: The Learning Impact Research Project (LIRP)

There has been legislation in place since the 1970s in Canada's largest province, Ontario, that encourages the identification of significant heritage buildings and is supposed to provide them with at least a degree of protection. Both heritage recognition and most other land use decisions, however, are exercised at the local government level. W'hile conservation of heritage structures has been successful in some places, an alarming number of significant historic buildings in the province continue to be lost. Relying on dozens of volunteers, this study examined thousands of buildings in over twenty Ontario communities and sought to establish how many heritage buildings had been demolished and to determine why these losses were occurring. It was discovered that in the municipalities surveyed over 400 historically recognised buildings had been lost in the last sixteen years. Recommendations for how to deal with this problem are included in the study.     

Survey Results from Lagos Bay,Portugal

The Projecto de Carta Arqueológica Subaquática do Concelho de Lagos (PCASCL) aimed to locate, identify and protect existing underwater cultural heritage within the district's coastal area. This project was based on a five‐phase methodology which included archival research, assessment, survey and conservation. PCASCL resulted in the discovery of five shipwrecks and several artefacts which were added to the Portuguese archaeological record. This also led to the development of a secondary project which focused on one of the five shipwrecks as well as proposals for an underwater archaeological park in Lagos.     

Dilemma of local socio-economic perspectives in management of historic ruins in Kilwa Kisiwani World Heritage Site,Tanzania

The study explored the value that local residents place on historic ruins, focusing on their socio-economic value. It also explored the implications of conventional Cultural Heritage Management’s (CHM) indifference to this. Using in-depth data from 22 residents in Kilwa Kisiwani World Heritage Site in Tanzania, the study found that residents not only attach cultural value to the ruins, but also consider them a conservation project and tourist attraction, from which they can earn money and get employment and see infrastructure and social facilities developed. It also found that the destructive activities of illegally digging to construct toilets and water collectors, letting domestic animals wander in the ruins, quarrying old underground walls for coral stones, and lighting fires are partly the result of limited socio-economic benefits, inconsistent business opportunities, complaints about employment and payment, and few feasible alternatives for making a living. By engaging with the socio-economic discourse, this study broadens our understanding of the integration of conservation in the broader social agenda, and contributes to the economist-anthropologic debate on CHM. It informs heritage managers and policy makers on alternative strategies that would maintain the sustainability of the heritage.     

From values to narrative: a new foundation for the conservation of historic buildings

Since its inception, modern conservation has derived the significance of a heritage asset from the identification and prioritisation of distinct classes of values. Different systems of values have been proposed, and the focus of the debate has been on the competing merits of such systems, with little attention paid to the genealogy of their theoretical foundation. If such values-based systems were ever appropriate, they are increasingly out of step with other areas of cultural life, and the resulting tensions are particularly manifested when considering change to historic buildings and environments. The currently under-theorised state of conservation is positively harmful both to the conservation professions and to the buildings we seek to protect. It is increasingly urgent therefore that we understand conservation’s philosophical origins, that we question the application of a late-nineteenth-century modernist approach to culture, and that we seek a better theoretical foundation.