Built Heritage Conservation and Contemporary Urban Development:The Contribution of Architectural Practice to the Challenges of Modernisation

An insight into the shared history of built heritage and urban development along the 20th century reveals different attempts to solve the dialectic conflict between conservation and modernisation from the discipline of architecture.This paper makes a review of the nature,aims and results of these attempts,highlighting the contributions to the discussion that originated from Italy between the 1950s and 1980s.It points to the challenges brought by the 1972 World Heritage Convention and the extent of social,economic and urban changes that have contributed to raise awareness about urban heritage in the present time.The article departs from a value-centred framework in order to describe current architectural,cultural,economic and social issues concerning the contribution of architecture and urban planning to heritage conservation in the age of globalization.This insight will delineate new conservation practices,strategies and methodologies,especially relating to the 2011 Historic Urban Landscape Recommendation and its declared goal for sustainable urban development.

The transformation of the inherited historical urban and architectural characteristics of Al-Najaf's Old City and possible preservation insights

This paper focuses on the dramatic transformation of the inherited historical urban and architectural characteristics of the city of Al-Najafin Iraq,seeking new ways of seeing the possibilities of preserving and revitalizing the historical center of the city.In addition to being one of the most sacred centers for Shia Muslims,Al-Najaf has a rich cultural and architectural heritage.Its architectural characteristics and urban structure not only reflect the history of the city but also stand as evidence of the most important junctures in Islamic history:the martyrdom of Imam AU ibn Abi Talib,who is a central Islamic spiritual personality and the second most important figure after the Prophet Muhammad.Since its estab-Ushment in 750 AD,the formation of Al-Najaf has never separated from its sociopolitical context and Islamic principles,particularly Shia Muslims'beliefs.Today,the city is a destination for more than million Shia Muslim pilgrims each year,and the number is rapidly increasing.However,as the city continues to develop,its architecture and unique urban structure transform dramatically.The cultural and architectural heritage of the city is seriously threatened.Several factors played a crucial role in the formation and the transformation of the city's specific architectural and urban structures.The most influential factors were mainly related to religion,environment,and politics.This paper introduces the main forces behind the transformation of the deep organizational structures of the architecture and urban fabric in Al-Najaf.The question of whether it is still possible to protect and preserve the remaining parts and revitalize the Old City center is also examined.The goal is to identify the major preservation issues and provide possible insights based on successful preservation experiences that address similar issues indifferent contexts.

Connecting Concepts of Cultural Landscape and Historic Urban Landscape: The Politics of Similarity

This paper projects the concept of cultural landscapes into the realm of urban conservation in the context of the Historic Urban Landscape(HUL)paradigm.To do this I take an historical overview of how,during the latter half of the 1980s and early 1990s,academic and professional interest in heritage studies started to embrace the cultural landscape construct.This movement continued through the 2000s with increasing links between theory and practice on urban conservation concerns and the concept of cities as cultural landscapes.In this connection the move in 2011 by UNESCO with the Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape is particularly notable.Coincidental were two significant movements.First was increasing questioning of heritage as focusing narrowly on the monuments and sites mentality.Second has been the growing appreciation that urban conservation locking onto separate historic towns or specific parts of cities is counter-productive;it ignores towns and cities as holistic entities isolating historic areas virtually as museum pieces separate from the rest of the urban fabric and lacking sustainability.In contrast HUL with its landscape approach is a process1 that embraces-city-wide-cultural,natural,tangible and intangible,social,economic,visual and experiential aspects of the physical morphology of the city and the image of the city;it underpins the fundamental concept of urban areas as a series of layers through time that link past,present and future as in the construct of cultural landscape.

Degeneration of socio-urban fabric at Yenikapi and proposals for rehabilitation

This paper aimed to discuss urban conservation challenges along the axes of two streets in the neighborhood of Yenikapi leading towards Kumkapi.The Yenikapi area of the historic peninsula of Istanbul is known to have been inhabited since prehistoric times,and it was the site of an important late antiquity port.Many cultural assets,including monuments from a number of periods and nineteenth century houses,remain in the area,but jarring changes have occurred due to newly built constructions,town planning decisions,and the development of public transport.Before any proposal for future area conservation activities,the current state of conservation was inspected through onsite analyses conducted along Pa^azade,imrahor Hamami,and Sepet^i Selim streets.By analyzing the pressures affecting the historical peninsula,the challenges in the conservation effort of the study area were determined,followed by some proposals for its enhancement and general conservation.

Double-brooding and annual breeding success of great tits in urban and forest habitats

Urban areas differ from natural habitats in several environmental features that influence the characteristics of animals living there.For example,birds often start breeding seasonally earlier and fledge fewer offspring per brood in cities than in natural habitats.However,longer breeding seasons in cities may increase the frequency of double-brooding in urban compared with nonurban populations,thus potentially increasing urban birds’annual reproductive output and resulting in lower habitat difference in reproductive success than estimated by studies focusing on first clutches only.In this study,we investigated 2 urban and 2 forests great tit Parus major populations from 2013 to 2019.We compared the probability of double-brooding and the total number of annually fledged chicks per female between urban and forest habitats,while controlling for the effects of potentially confounding variables.There was a trend for a higher probability of double-brooding in urban(44%of females)than in forest populations(36%),although this was not consistent between the 2 urban sites.Females produced significantly fewer fledglings annually in the cities than in the forest sites,and this difference was present both within single-and double-brooded females.Furthermore,double-brooded urban females produced a similar number of fledglings per season as single-brooded forest females.These results indicate that double-brooding increases the reproductive success of female great tits in both habitats,but urban females cannot effectively compensate in this way for their lower reproductive output per brood.However,other mechanisms like increased post-fledging survival can mitigate habitat differences in reproductive success.

Planetary Urbanisation and the Built Heritage from a Non-Western Perspective: The Question of ‘How' We Should Protect the Past

The process of planetary urbanisation,which is currently affecting a large part of the world,impacts on the existing built environment in an unprecedented way.Its dramatic rapidity often implies the sudden disappearance of traditional urban and rural structures and the rapid transformation of local cultures.Contextually,as never before,attempts to protect culture in its tangible and intangible expressions are increasingly central to international agendas on sustainable urbanisation.However,this is by no means an easy task to achieve.The main reason for the controversy is that the consensus around the need to protect heritage and its tools,as formulated primarily in the Western world in the past,has changed.It has been challenged by alternative,non-Western,primarily non-materialistic views,or it has been delegitimised by the(often)exploitative practice of heritagisation,as a result of the process of protection itself.The main aim of this paper is to reflect on the implications of contemporary planetary urbanisation on the built heritage and its protection,considering that most of this process is taking place in fast-developing countries of Asia,Africa and South America and,at the same time,there is a redistribution of economic(and therefore cultural)power from the West to the East,and from the North to the South of the planet.

Temporalities and the conservation of cultural relic protection units:legislative,economic and citizen times of the Bugaoli community in globalising Shanghai

Since the establishment of treaty ports in the mid-19th century,the urban development of many Chinese cities,and notably of Shanghai,has been heavily influenced by global economic flows and global urban and architectural practices.In Shanghai,extensive lilong neighbourhoods stand as remnants of the treaty port era.Many of these historic districts are in close proximity to rapidly transforming areas of the city,creating civic tension around demolition,conservation and the redevelopment of colonial heritage.Examining the listed Bugaoli community in Shanghai’s old French Concession,the heritage strategies applied under the particular Cultural Relics Protection System(CRPS),and the discourse of local residents interviewed in the context of this project,this paper reveals the paradoxes around urban heritage conservation and urban development by considering three different temporalities:legislative time,economic time and citizen time.The paper argues that actors involved in heritage practices should consider both space and time related issues in urban heritage conservation.Historic communities such as Bugaoli experience conflicts between conservation and the demands of everyday life.They underline and require a heritage strategy that acknowledges diverse temporalities and balances legal norms,economic interests and the public’s demands.