More than half of the worldâs population now live in urban areas (UN-Habitat 2008). Cities provide the locale for many of the great issues of our time â exponential population growth due to high in-migration and birth rates, rapid urban development and re-development, the engulfing of surrounding agricultural and recreational land, uncontrolled mass tourism and social exclusion and unequal access to socio-economic opportunities. These issues impact dramatically on the conservation and management of urban heritage. Yet, at the same time, the sensitive management of urban heritage may be part of the solution to these city problems. This volume of commissioned papers discusses these two aspects of the heritage versus development dilemma. It focuses on innovative approaches to managing the developmental pressures faced by urban heritage, as well as the ways in which taking an ethical, inclusive and holistic approach to urban planning and heritage conservation may create a stronger basis for the sustainable growth of cities into the future.
The volume will analyse, first, how these two concepts â urban heritage and development â have been theorised and used by international intergovernmental organisations such as the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the World Bank and UN-Habitat. The strengths and weaknesses in these theoretical approaches and international frameworks are canvassed. The volume explores how conservation and development come together in the notion of âbalanceâ, which is an oft-heard planning objective, but in fact, one of the chief conundrums bedevilling contemporary heritage theory and practice as well as urban planning and management. This applies especially in urban contexts where a long history has resulted in a rich legacy of the past, both tangible and intangible, and where pressures to create new environmental conditions, claimed to be better suited to the needs of modern economic activities, are concentrated. It is, of course, not a new dilemma; indeed, the modern heritage movement in many countries and internationally flowed out of earlier manifestations of the same concern about the lack of balance, notably with heritage being neglected in favour of development. More recent versions of the issue have led to more integrated approaches, balancing heritage protection with urban development, as seen in UNESCOâs Historic Urban Landscape (HUL).
The volume notes the contradictions within international narratives and guidance; the inadequacy of internationally agreed concepts, such as sustainable development, and their operationalisation as well as the exclusionary nature of policies and programmes for urban conservation and development. Too often heritage destruction is carried out in the name of modernity and progress and against the wishes of local communities for whom the heritage is a valued part of their living environment and a manifestation of their identity. Local people are left out of discussions about the future of their places and innovative grassroots approaches to the development pressures faced by urban heritage are seldom considered. These negatives notwithstanding, the volume argues that the conservation of heritage can assist the achievement of sustainable economic growth and social justice. Social exclusion and unequal access to socio-economic opportunities are common threads in the book. In addition, efforts are directed towards identifying by whom and for whom conservation and development policies and programmes are established.
Early approaches to urban heritage conservation and development
Urban heritage conservation in Europe extends back to the mid-nineteenth century (Siravo 2011). It emerged in response to the destruction of ancient and medieval buildings in the French Revolution and other European revolutions and insurrections and to the wider scale destruction of whole historic quarters in modernisation campaigns that aimed to open them up to new economic activities and transport systems as well as improving standards of hygiene (Bandarin and Van Oers 2012: 3). The revolutionary wave of destruction principally attacked aristocratic and religious buildings, while the wave of modernisation primarily targeted vernacular buildings. In France, the response to the ravages of the 1789 Revolution led to the emergence, a generation later, of the first national heritage protection system with the appointment of the first inspector general of historical monuments in 1831 â Prosper MĂ©rimĂ©e, mostly remembered by the world as the author of the novella on which Bizetâs opera Carmen is based. EugĂšne Viollet-le-Ducâs contribution to the development of a national heritage system is better known. Appointed by MĂ©rimĂ©e in 1839, Viollet-le-Duc did an enormous amount of work over the next 35 years, from the abbey church of La Madeleine in VĂ©zelay to the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris and the fortress of Carcassonne.
Much of this early French work has been criticised as representative of an approach that focused on iconic and monumental buildings that were presented in their full glory and beauty but protected in an isolated manner, divorced from their wider urban context (Glendinning 2013: 90). This is the case, for instance, with the Gothic Notre Dame in Paris, which was subsequently cleared of the mazes of medieval streets and houses for the construction of its forecourt by the Baron Georges Haussmann as part of his reshaping of Paris between 1848 and 1870. While Haussmannâs approach turned Paris into a more unified, beautified and ventilated capital, with open avenues and streets, it was also an exercise in âcivic cleansingâ. It had a political dimension in that the wide avenues were supposed to be more secure, to prevent, among other things, the construction of barricades (easier to erect in small streets) and to facilitate the movement of army troops.
Local communities were totally excluded from this contradictory process of conservation and destruction. The values these communities might have seen in individual monuments or more vernacular parts of cities were not taken into account. A number of prominent intellectuals of the time strongly objected to this approach to urban heritage conservation, the most renowned and vehement being Victor Hugo. In his pamphlet La Guerre aux DĂ©molisseurs (1832), Hugo condemned speculators who destroyed medieval quarters for profit-making activities, resulting in the loss of priceless intangible and vernacular heritage. Across the channel in the United Kingdom, initial critics, such as John Ruskin, disliked the French âimaginative restorationâ and preferred a more Romantic approach that kept ruins as ruins. Ruskinâs The Stones of Venice (three volumes 1851â3) set a British pattern that was reinforced in 1877 by William Morrisâ Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. Both Ruskin and Morris were social reformers, particularly in criticising the workings of industrial capitalism and in advocating greater status for craftsmen; nevertheless, taking note of local community views of heritage was not among their priorities.
The end of the nineteenth century saw a more decisive move away from urban heritage conservation understood as single monumental buildings, detached from their surroundings and disconnected from local communities. The Austrian architect Camillo Sitte, for instance, adopted a global understanding of the urban fabric as an aesthetic entity, through focusing on urban morphologies (Sitte 1965; Choay 1969). He thus condemned an approach that would focus on individual urban monuments. He also criticised an approach to urban planning and landscaping that would lead to regular and grid plans, detached from their socio-economic histories, preferring more organic cities, built according to social, economic and cultural necessities and opportunities. This was more in line with the Garden City Movement in the UK that sought to break down the distinction between built urban and organic rural (Hardy 1991).
Also in Britain, the Scottish biologist and town planner Patrick Geddes introduced his holistic approach to urban planning and heritage conservation in his Cities in Evolution: An Introduction to the Town Planning Movement and to the Study of Civics (1915). The book contained some pioneering ideas on the relationship between urban heritage, development and sustainability. For him, before any development could take place, the city as a whole needed to be understood through surveys and mappings of its economic, social and cultural functions. His approach was strongly influenced by Darwinism and the theory of evolution. Indeed, he believed that any development project should respect and conserve the âurban ecosystemâ of the whole city, paying particular attention to the connections between spaces for work, places for cultural and social uses as well as local communities.
In other words, Geddes believed in the protection of the historic urban environment as a whole and the harmonious integration of any development project within this urban ecosystem. He also believed that urban development projects should be seen in the broader context of the surrounding countryside, considered as an integral part of the ecosystem. Finally, and making a distinct break with what had come before, Geddes argued that local communities and their intangible attachments to places should be at the heart of urban heritage conservation and urban planning interventions. Geddes can thus be considered as a visionary, who introduced, before his time, the idea of a sustainable approach to development that should take account of the existing urban landscape in all its complexities. His writings seem to have been a major inspiration for the 2011 UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape (Veldpaus et al. 2013: 5â6).
International and national heritage management approaches after World War II
The conditions created by World War II â death and displacement of peoples, unsettling of colonial empires, destruction of cities and national economies â led to a variety of responses affecting urban and heritage management principles and practice. Reacting to the need for economic and social recovery, in the United Kingdom, the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, in conjunction with a parallel piece of legislation in Scotland, established a new national system that, although revised many times, continues to define how the management of land, and hence development and conservation, can be carried out today. It established the rule, for instance, that ownership of land alone does not confer the untrammelled right to develop the land but that planning permission is required for land development. Under the 1947 Act, local authorities were also given power to redevelop land themselves or compulsorily acquire and lease it to private developers. Already anxious about urban sprawl and its impact on villages and the countryside, the Act also allowed local authorities to control outdoor advertising and to preserve woodland and buildings of architectural or historic interest.
This marked the start of the British listed building system, a rather eclectic system based on the personal preferences of a band of heritage professionals rather than on a clear set of significance criteria and attributes, but one that has been influential in other parts of the world, notably in former British colonies. The decolonisation processes occurring after World War II saw many new countries becoming both independent and ânewly developingâ, with huge demands for improved standards of living and the lowering of environmental protection standards in the bid to attract industrial investment and development. Heritage was, understandably, low on the agenda of governments in such countries. Other countries bent on post-war recovery and improved living standards, such as Japan, rushed into industrial and urban developments, with dire consequences for urban environments and an urge to re-construct lost heritage monuments a generation later.
In response to some insensitive infrastructure developments in the 1950s and inner city urban renewal in the 1960s, the United States also took steps to protect its heritage. This meant, in the American social and political context where private property rights are particularly strong, that the protection focus was on natural rather than cultural heritage. Even so, many cities adopted preservation regulations. According to Gustavo Araoz:
The will to conserve and monumentalize such sites did not issue from either the central or the local government, but rather, from local citizen groups who valued the cultural, historic and patriotic sites that lay in their immediate community. For decades, the government offered little interest, no assistance, and no official recognition to any of these sites. Thus, from its very origin, the preservation movement in the United States has been characterized by being a grassroots effort driven at the local level and one that evolved in isolation from outside influences, responding only to perceived local needs.
(Araoz 2015)
Nevertheless, public pressure did lead to the National Historic Preservation Act 1966, which covers districts as well as site, buildings, structures and artefacts, requires assessment of the potential impact on heritage of all federally funded development projects and provides a range of grants, loans and tax incentives to encourage individuals to restore and maintain their properties.
In France, the urban redevelopment pressures on heritage came to a head in the Marais district in Paris in the early 1960s. Here, rather than allow the demolition of the hĂŽtels (townhouses) built by noble families in the ancien rĂ©gime and smaller medieval houses, AndrĂ© Malraux, the French Minister for Culture, established a set of planning regulations in 1962 that came to be known as the loi Malraux. From this beginning, the planning treatment of urban heritage around the world has sought to protect broad areas of historic, aesthetic, architectural or scientific interest, rather than simply focusing on individual monuments. It is rather remarkable that about the same time â 1964 â when a group of conservation architects working to restore buildings in war-torn cities, mostly in Europe, met in Venice and decided to formalise a set of principles to guide conservation practice, they kept to the old focus on monuments and sites and ignored the broader, more modern concepts of historic precincts, villages, towns and townscapes. This same group was behind the creation in 1965 of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) that adopted the so-called Venice Charter (Second ICATHM 1964) as its foundational doctrine and it is now positioned under the UNESCO World Heritage Convention as an official advisory body to the World Heritage Committee on matters relating to cultural heritage.
It had been the creation of UNESCO in 1945 that led to the internationalisation of the debate about, and approaches to, the protection of urban heritage and the connection between heritage, development and sustainability. The adoption of the 1972 Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (the World Heritage Convention), in particular, can be understood as reflecting concerns for unsustainable models of development and their impacts on heritage, chiefly cultural in Europe and natural in North America. This legal instrument reflects many of the dominant ideas of the 1970s related to the adverse environmental consequences of growth â pollution, wasteful resource use, spoiled rural landscapes and inhospitable urban environments. These concerns about unbridled growth are clearly spelt out at the beginning of the Preamble of the Convention, which highlights that:
The cultural heritage and natural heritage are increasingly threatened with destruction not only by the traditional causes of decay, but also by changing social and economic conditions which aggravate the situation with even more formidable phenomena of damage and destruction.
(UNESCO 1972)
The Convention also reflects the need to take better account and care of non-renewable resources, including cultural heritage. It is revealing that the book The Limits to Growth (Meadows 1972), commissioned by the Club of Rome, which clearly warns against unsustainable growth trends, was released in the year the Wor...
