Ödemiş-Dereuzunyer: Architectural Features of a Rural Settlement to Be Submerged by Dam Waters

ABSTRACT

The village of Dereuzunyer located in the Rahmanlar Valley of the Küçük Menderes Basin is a settlement that is a natural extension of a topography shaped by a joint contribution of culture and nature. It has preserved the authenticity and integrity of its traditional rural fabric and gives detailed information about the architectural approach, building technology, construction techniques, landscape features and traditional craftsmanship of past rural life. While some of the cultural assets in the settlement containing detailed information about the rural lifestyle of the past have survived to date despite the harsh natural conditions, the remainder have been neglected, become dilapidated, and fallen into ruin over time due to lack of maintenance by the local people because of rumors about the possible dam project and expropriations in progress. After completion of the Rahmanlar Dam in 2019, the cultural landscape values of Dereuzunyer will be lost irretrievably. This article aims to make a contribution to creating awareness about avoiding such losses, not only by introducing the non-renewable values of Dereuzunyer, by documentation of its historical development, its traditional architecture, its traditional building types, its construction techniques, and its plan and façade features, but also by promoting and interpreting its lost cultural heritage.     

On not being Dubai: infrastructures of urban cultural policy in Istanbul & Beirut

ABSTRACT

This paper compares how Istanbul and Beirut both attempt to underline their cultural and developmental uniqueness today in contrast to a metonymic menace – Dubai, standing in for spectacular yet supposedly cultureless Gulf cities. Even amid their own speculative construction frenzies that threaten local heritage, Turkish and Lebanese city-shapers assert theirs are ‘real’ cities because they have ‘civilization’ and ‘history.’ By addressing their own efforts to build, defend, or oppose physical infrastructures related to local urban culture, Istanbullus and Beirutis rely on and reassert strategic, phatic discourses that frequently reference Gulf cities as counterpoint. Analysis focuses on how each city crafts a distinctive urban profile via civilizational appeals to historic senses of culture, inflecting infrastructural developments related to bridging (Istanbul) and bordering (Beirut). Historical truisms are deployed with marked flexibility to showcase these cities as ‘not Dubai.’ This study offers lessons on the particular worlding of Middle Eastern cities and the role of discourses in the material-symbolic infrastructure of implicit urban cultural policy.     

An Industrial-Archaeological Approach to the Mineral Loading Docks in Rande Strait,North-Western Spain

During the 20th century, the need for raw material promoted a commercial transportation trade of iron ores from the deposits in north-western Spain, where Vigo city was considered one of the most important ports. The global energy crisis in the 1970s, as well as the strong competition from other exporting countries, dented the prolific activity of companies dedicated to the extraction and trading of iron ore. The main goal of this article is the evaluation of one particular element of the mining and industrial heritage — two old mineral loading docks in Ría de Vigo in the Rande Strait, linking the municipalities of Redondela and Moaña. Their development as a tourist resource would add to the cultural and economic activities already developed in the area.     

Whose Heritage? Immigration and Place Narratives in Denmark

Questions of heritage, of ownership of discourses of past and present are important elements in present‐day struggles over identity and belonging, not least those related to immigration policy. None the less, the perspective of immigrant groups is often overlooked when decisions are taken concerning preservation of heritage sites. Since the late 1960s the area around Frederiksværk, Northern Zealand has become the home of large numbers of immigrants, notably from ex‐Yugoslavia, who were brought to Denmark to serve as rank and file in the then booming steel industry. In spite of their undeniable contribution to the development of the town, the cultural heritage of this relatively large immigrant population takes up very little space in the official branding of the town as a key site in the industrial history of Denmark. This article discusses the various place narratives in relation to immigrants in the case of Frederiksværk. We take as our point of departure the Danish notion of kulturmiljø (cultural milieu), which is more material than the notion of heritage. This discussion focuses on the ability of kulturmiljø to capture and incorporate the multiple and often contradictory cultural practices of different groups of actors and not the least to transgress the often rather static and confined view on local history, which often results from the heritage perspective. We analyze how different actors, notably the Yugoslavs, are represented in the narratives of the town, and how Yugoslav immigrants themselves perceive their position in Frederiksværk. Furthermore, we attempt to register some of the imprints made by immigrants on the material and cultural fabric, possibly useful to include in a kulturmiljø of Frederiksværk. The conclusion assesses the potentials and limitations of the kulturmiljø approach with regard to making visible the place narratives of immigrants.     

The Roads of Andalusia and Valencia. A Spanish Transport Legacy of the 18th and 19th Centuries

Roads designed by civil or military engineers for animal-drawn vehicles before the arrival of the railways constituted an essential factor for the movement of goods and people and for the economy and trade in different countries. The improvement in road construction techniques over the 18th and 19th centuries, following the creation of the first civil engineering colleges and institutions, allowed greater transportation at diminishing cost. Despite its significance, this heritage has received comparatively little attention from industrial archaeologists. As such, the object of the present article is to provide an overview of the development in road planning and construction in Spain over the 18th and 19th centuries, in order to demonstrate the historical and technological value of these roads. The article also presents two sections of Spanish roads corresponding to the start and end of the study period, and identifies some of the main archaeological elements dating to their time of construction that prove the evolution in road technology. This process has made it possible to create an inventory which incorporates the main elements that characterise this type of infrastructure.