Values and Re-purposing Cultural Heritage

Values and Re-purposing Cultural Heritage

Krijnen, Luuk (TU Delft Architecture and the Built Environment; TU Delft History & Complexity)

Nevzgodin, I. (mentor)

Delft University of Technology

Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences

AR2A011

2023-04-20

The re-purposing of cultural heritage is becoming more and more prominent. Often, cultural heritage objects hold (great) value, making working with them a difficult task. Therefore, in order to complete these types of projects successfully, a clear overview over what is important has to be present. A way to do this is to document the most important values about the heritage and architecture in general, allowing decisions to be soundly backed. This thesis aims to create a model for this based on a model originating from previous research by answering the following question: to what degree is the model presented by Mazumdar & Mazumdar (1994) applicable to the re-purposing of cultural heritage? First, the connection between societal values and architecture is established, showing clear signs of a relationship between the two. Next, carefully formulated heritage values and legislative documents will be discussed, where the importance of considering the “cultural significance” is explained. Cultural significance can be defined as everything that makes the cultural heritage object in question valuable, ideally defined by both experts and the public. To answer the research question, the original model is tested against the re-purposing and refurbishment of State Library Victoria in Melbourne, revealing that while technically applicable, the original model needs to be expanded for the important values at play when re-purposing cultural heritage to be clearly documented. The term “societal values” is too broad to both describe the cultural significance and general values about architecture. Therefore, cultural significance is introduced in the model, comprised of expert assessment and communal heritage values. This changed model is presented, and allows anyone working on such projects to create a map with a clear overview of the important values.

AR2A011
values
heritage
cultural significance
charter

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:3bc3c559-5bbc-4aba-9a33-37cf04dc5e2f

Student theses

student report

© 2023 Luuk Krijnen