World Heritage in Danger: Case Studies About Some of the Factors that Threaten Cultural Sites

2021 ◽  
pp. 281-304
Author(s):  
Inês de Carvalho Costa
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
World Heritage ◽  
Cultural Sites

Provincia di Belluno. Tracce di contemporaneità / Province of Belluno. Traces of contemporaneity

ARCHALP ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 174-179
Author(s):  
Francesca Bogo
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
World Heritage ◽  
Cultural Resistance ◽  
Unesco World Heritage ◽  
Regulatory Constraints ◽  
Landscape Quality ◽  
Historical Heritage ◽  
Contemporary Architecture ◽  
And Diffusion

The Province of Belluno is home of great human and landscape quality and of the beautiful Dolomites, UNESCO World Heritage. How experiences of contemporary architecture fit and how are promoted in this context? It can be said that contemporary architecture does not attract a big audience. This is despite the constant efforts by various bodies and associations to promote its diffusion and development through competitions, conferences, workshops and case studies. In the Belluno region, apart from the extraordinary extant historical heritage, there are widespread examples of new architecture known as “false alpine models” or architecture that has erroneously become typical of the Province’s image. This is the reason why this new architecture with its range of peculiarities is widely reiterated, from north to south of the area. Even though buildings of this type lack any real ties with history or tradition, they find widespread approval by institutions and commissions. They are the result of repetitive practices deriving from constraints imposed by local regulations and a limited aptitude in the use of contemporary language of architecture. Even if the barometer of the vitality of contemporary architecture in the region of Belluno is rather lukewarm, dampened by cultural resistance and by regulatory constraints affecting its growth and diffusion, there is no lack of experiences, initiatives and achievements. The latter is evidence of the fact that where research and the use of contemporary languages are accompanied by the opinions of enlightened patrons, good architecture is born, which find space in the arena of national and international architectural debate. Examples of good architecture, even though limited in number, are distributed across the Province and constitute heritage and the focus for promoting and consolidating the growth and dissemination of contemporary architecture throughout the area.

Oporto’s Historic Center

2020 ◽  
pp. 172-184
Author(s):  
Maria Leonor Botelho
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
World Heritage ◽  
Scale Model ◽  
Historic Center ◽  
World Heritage List ◽  
The World ◽  
The City ◽  
Careful Documentation ◽  
State Of Art

In 1996, the World Heritage Committee added the Historic Center of Oporto, Portugal, to the World Heritage List, recognizing its outstanding value, identified by its urban fabric and its many historic buildings. The area’s value is the result of a complex topography, articulated through streets, lanes, alleyways, stairs, and squares, while its architecture (residences and monuments) projects cultural values accumulated over successive eras. In the state of art section, this chapter presents some significant references and visual resources that contribute to the understand city´s urban development and to visualize the city in the past. This chapter presents two case studies of the authors’ attempts at visualization of that historic district. One describes a 3D scale model—Oporto’s Medieval Scale Model - and the other is a virtual reality project—Virtual Porto in the Sixteen Century—both shown as examples of thorough research, careful documentation of processes, and clear and approachable presentation. The authors also consider the potential of expanded development of such presentations, in light of uses in tourism and furthering greater knowledge, with the goals of facilitating the process of heritage conservation and the dissemination of information. As such, the two case studies are viewed in terms of principles of the London Charter regarding the creation of virtual heritage, as well as cite other examples of projects in European cities.

scholarly journals Word Heritage Sites as soft tourism destinations – their impacts on international arrivals and tourism receipts

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (45) ◽  
pp. 25-44
Author(s):  
Zsuzsanna Bacsi ◽  
Éva Tóth
Keyword(s):  
World Heritage ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Caribbean Region ◽  
General Level ◽  
World Heritage Sites ◽  
Tourist Attractions ◽  
Heritage Sites ◽  
Cultural Sites ◽  
Natural World Heritage Sites ◽  
Cultural World

AbstractThe paper deals with the relationship between the presence of world heritage sites in a country and the volume of international tourist arrivals and international tourism receipts. World heritage sites are unique tourist attractions with enhanced attention paid to their protection, preservation and sustainability. The paper analyses whether the needs of sustainability can be harmonised with the requirements of a profitable and successful tourism sector, by statistical analysis of data about world heritage sites and tourism performance, for 129 countries of the world from 2014 to 2017. The results show that both cultural and natural world heritage sites are generally strong attractions for tourists and can contribute to increased arrivals and receipts. Cultural sites were found to have higher impact on arrivals, while natural heritage sites seemed to have more impact on receipts, which suggest, that visitors of natural world heritage sites are usually higher spenders, than tourists visiting cultural sites. Countries widely differ, however, in this respect by their geographical locations. Countries in Europe and Latin-America & the Caribbean region benefit most from cultural world heritage sites, while African, and North American countries experienced the benefits of natural world heritage sites more. The general level of development measured by per capita GNI also mattered for the less developed areas, but not so much for developed regions that possess a suitable level of infrastructure, health and education, and living standards.

scholarly journals The status of current and tentative marine natural World Heritage areas

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caitlin Kuempel ◽  
Blake Alexander Simmons ◽  
Madeline Davey
Keyword(s):  
Threatened Species ◽  
Human Impacts ◽  
Conservation Status ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
World Heritage ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Global Strategy ◽  
Cultural Sites ◽  
Outstanding Universal Value ◽  
The Status

The 1972 World Heritage Convention (WHC), along with the 1994 Global Strategy, aim to preserve the outstanding universal value of internationally important cultural and natural sites within a "representative, balanced and credible" network of highly-protected areas. Increasing human pressures and shortfalls in representation have been documented across the World Heritage network, particularly in terrestrial and cultural sites, threatening the integrity and primary goals of the WHC. However, the conservation status of current and tentative (i.e., proposed) marine natural World Heritage areas remains relatively unknown. We assessed the extent of recent (2013) and historical (2008-2013) cumulative human impacts and several metrics of representation (country, continent, ecoregion, wilderness, and threatened species) within existing and tentative marine natural World Heritage areas. We found moderate yet increasing cumulative human impacts across most existing sites, and high or very high impacts across the majority of tentative sites. Climate change impacts comprised nearly 75% of impact scores, on average, and differences in land and marine impacts across sites could help prioritise management decisions. Over 75% of marine ecoregions and 85% of threatened species considered in this study have no representation within the existing marine natural World Heritage network. We outline examples of how prioritizing representation across tentative sites for future World Heritage listing could greatly increase these measures. We urge the WHC to adopt quantitative, systematic and transparent evaluations of how current and tentative sites contribute to the overarching goals of maintaining a representative World Heritage network and preserving their outstanding universal values for future generations.

scholarly journals World Heritage Sites on Wikipedia: Cultural Heritage Activism in a Context of Constrained Agency

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Marwick ◽  
Prema Smith
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Data Science ◽  
World Heritage ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
World Heritage Sites ◽  
Heritage Sites ◽  
The Past ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Distributions ◽  
Cultural Sites

UNESCO World Heritage sites are places of outstanding significance, and often key sources of information that influence how people interact with the past today. The process of inscription on the UNESCO list is complicated and intersects with political and commercial controversies. But how well are these controversies known to the public? Wikipedia pages on these sites offer a unique dataset for insights into public understanding of heritage controversies. The unique technicity of Wikipedia, with its bot ecosystem and editing mechanics, shapes how knowledge about cultural heritage is constructed, and how controversies are negotiated and communicated. In this article we investigate the patterns of production, consumption and spatial and temporal distributions of Wikipedia pages for World Heritage cultural sites. We find that Wikipedia provides a distinctive context for investigating how people experience and relate to the past in the present. The agency of participants is highly constrained, but distinctive, behind-the-scenes expressions of cultural heritage activism are evident. Concerns about state-like actors, violence and destruction, deal-making, etc. in the World Heritage inscription process are present, but rare on Wikipedia’s World Heritage pages. Instead hyper-local, and process issues dominate controversies on Wikipedia. We describe how this kind of research, drawing on big data and data science methods, contributes to digital heritage studies, and also reveals its limitations.

Scenarios for a Smart Tourism Destination Transformation

2020 ◽  
pp. 326-340
Author(s):  
Robert Germain Lanquar
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
World Heritage ◽  
Tourism Destination ◽  
Smart Systems ◽  
Edge Field ◽  
The World ◽  
The City ◽  
Research Domain ◽  
Smart Tourism ◽  
Over Time

Reluctance and even resistance for the city transformation into a smart tourism destination (STD) may occur on the edge field of smart systems, even if over time, often with political changes, this resistance breaks down. This situation is occurring in Cordoba (Spain) which held the record of four inscriptions in the World Heritage Lists granted by UNESCO. The concept of smart tourism is recent. As a research domain, it is only emerging. So, few analyses and case studies were elaborated on it. This chapter shows how this reluctance is coming from stakeholders and how the transformation of Cordoba into a smart destination can be made harmoniously. Three scenarios are possible for this transformation either following actual tendencies or looking for two other paths, the green one or the intercultural one; how it could be done and its impacts on the City and the Province of Cordoba's economy, society, culture, and environment.

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