Ideology of urban conservation
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Date
29/06/2011Author
Stoica, Ruxandra-Iulia
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Abstract
Although urban heritage has been a research field in the focus of scholars’ attention
since the concepts of restoration and rehabilitation of monuments had been
extended to entire areas such as historical city centres, before the mid‐twentieth
century, architectural studies approached towns only through individual historical
monuments, and historical studies only through juridical, political, and religious
institutions or economic and social structures. In consequence, urban space as the
manifestation of the urban phenomenon in its complexity has been largely ignored
by the practice of urban conservation.
This thesis aims to be a theoretical approach to the field of urban
conservation, revealing its place at the crossing of history, architecture, urbanism,
geography, philosophy, and anthropology. The creation of place, its understanding,
the meaning that places hold for human identity and the way they shape us in
return. The basis of such an enquiry is set by looking at attitudes towards the
historic fabric over time and the origins of the notion of ‘urban conservation’ in its
European context. The concentration of economic, social and cultural exchanges
over long periods of time, which characterises traditional urban cultures, gives the
value of historical areas in towns. Therefore, the history of urban development
provides a substantial contribution towards the protection, conservation, and
restoration policy of historic towns and urban areas as well as towards their
development and adaptation to contemporary life.
The term ‘integrated conservation’ emerged as a response to these changes
in conservation’s relationship to heritage and its context. This broadened image of
heritage enables a better understanding of how human activity has shaped the
urban fabric and of how conservation can be perceived today as a component of
management of urban change. This raises a number of theoretical and
methodological issues, which are discussed in detail in this thesis: how do we
understand the historic urban areas and how do we elicit their cultural values in
order to protect and use these values. This research is therefore concerned with the
origin and nature of ideas relevant to urban conservation, rather than with what is
commonly regarded as being a prescriptive doctrine in heritage conservation
generally, and indeed urban conservation. In reality, this latter view of the
theoretical and philosophical body of research in conservation is hindering its
theoretical development as a discipline and has an undesired, stalling effect on
practice development. This is why this research aims to provide tools for thinking
about specific conservation issues, not self‐sufficient theories. The references span a
very wide timescale because of the inherent preoccupation of humans with their
own inhabiting of the world, which is ultimately the frame in which urban
settlements are inscribed.