This opinion piece was first written for Architecture + Women, 2016.
Contemporary international discussion regarding conservation of humanity’s cultural heritage has increasingly recognised the need for understanding historic places as cultural landscapes, highlighting the importance of multivocality and a sense of ownership at a local level to best protect places. However in practice, concepts of cultural landscapes are often avoided due to renewed debate around ‘authenticity’ and practical management difficulties. This continued disjunct between theory and practice can potentially perpetuate issues of alienation and silencing of the very communities to whom a historic place has value.
The conservator Dean Sully and others have drawn parallels between the New Zealand Maori concept of taonga and historic place conservation, suggesting that conservation of heritage as taonga is critical to preservation and transmission of cultural knowledge, preserving not just a physical object but oral and physical stories and skills. A taonga understanding of historic places has powerful potential to intrinsically contextualise architectural teaching and practice in Aotearoa, by embedding it in our whenua and broader Polynesian ancestry. In this context, architecture can be treasured for its continued use, community connections, and evolving values, which are not prescribed by ‘experts’ but are inherent to a historic place. It also becomes grounded in a cultural landscape that considers not only tangible structures from a particular period but allows fluidity between natural and cultural realities, interwoven with stories and performances that enliven and give them meaning.
Learning about, and responding to, historic places in this way presents the opportunity for architecture to more fully recognise human rights, by prioritising the sustainment of community life and spirit, and by truly embedding a place in its place.
Reading list
Avrami, E. (2000). Values and heritage conservation. Conservation, 15(2), 19-21.
Aygen, Z. (2013). International heritage and historic building conservation: Saving the world's past. New York: Routledge.
Chirikure, S., & Pwiti, G. (2008). Community involvement in archaeology and cultural heritage management: An assessment from case studies in southern africa and elsewhere. Current Anthropology, 49(3), 467-485.
Jokilehto, J. (2012). Human rights and cultural heritage. observations on the recognition of human rights in the international doctrine. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 18(3), 226-230.
Langfield, M. (2010). Global heritage: Perspectives from the northern territory, australia. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 16(3), 187-206.
Orbaşli, A. (2008). Architectural conservation: Principles and practice. Oxford; Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Pendlebury, J., Short, M., & While, A. (2009). Urban world heritage sites and the problem of authenticity. Cities, 26(6), 349-358.
Sully, D. (2007). Decolonizing conservation: Caring for maori meeting houses outside new zealand. Walnut Creek, California: Left Coast Press.
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