Preservation and Sustainability: Balancing Cultural Heritage and Modern Development in Bergen’s Bryggen Area

Bergen boasts a rich harbor-centric historical narrative, rooted in its erstwhile prominence as a key Hanseatic Office outpost. The evolutionary trajectory of its port infrastructure has engendered substantial urban development, epitomized by the emergence of the Bryggen precinct. Bryggen, constituting an urban fabric derived from Bergen’s...

A Hidden Water-Harvesting System: The Sassi de Matera

The water-harvesting system of the ancient Sassi di Matera, in the Basilicata region of southern Italy, represents a clever way of living with water in an arid climate. The terrain, with its soft rocks (Calcarenite di Gravina), provided the foundation for the water-harvesting system that shaped the cave dwellings of Sassi physically, socially...

The Historic Urban Landscape Approach and the Governance of World Heritage in Urban Contexts: Reflections from Three European Cities

Governance, and specifically local management and institutional systems, is among the key factors affecting the management of World Heritage (WH) properties in urban contexts. The adoption of the 2011 UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL approach) promotes a governance reform towards more inclusive and integrated...

Exploring the descriptions of World Heritage properties through the perspective of water using a narrative approach

A comprehensive understanding of water systems across space and time is key, both for sustainable urban development and heritage preservation. However, so far, a clear methodology that links the exploration of the past and the protection of heritage properties to the design of the future is still missing. We argue that an exploration of heritage...

Spanish Colonialism and the Impact of Old Havana's Heritage status

Old Havana is undergoing a restoration project which focusses on preserving the historic character of the district. In order to fund this process, the parties managing the restoration process focus on transforming the district by commodifying tourist facilities and services. The restoration attempts of managing parties have earned the district...

Heri-Graphs: A Dataset Creation Framework for Multi-Modal Machine Learning on Graphs of Heritage Values and Attributes with Social Media

Values (why to conserve) and Attributes (what to conserve) are essential concepts of cultural heritage. Recent studies have been using social media to map values and attributes conveyed by the public to cultural heritage. However, it is rare to connect heterogeneous modalities of images, texts, geo-locations, timestamps, and social network...

Urban World Heritage Management and Climate Change Preparedness: Understanding the Effect of Amsterdam’s Canal Ring District Heritage Site’s Management on the City’s Sustainability Development Plans

This thesis investigates the challeges of conserving the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Seventeenth Century Canal District of Amsterdam while attempting to become climate neutral by 2050. This thesis will start by explaining the background information necessary on the Seventeenth Century Canal District of Amsterdam’s cultural significance to...

Suzhou Classical Gardens: The content, value and protection process of Suzhou Classical Gardens

This historic thesis is about the content, value and protection of Suzhou Classical Gardens. The author finds a clue that implies a historical timeline in these three aspects, and provides readers with an opportunity to have a more comprehensive understanding of Suzhou Classical Gardens. And this clue is based on the three different subjects:...

Public Participation as a Tool to reach a Consensus: A Critical Reflection on the Historic Urban Landscape Approach

World Heritage cities (WHC), meaning urban areas, often in part, inscribed at the UNESCO World Heritage list are valuable heritages to many local and global communities and, therefore, attract efforts to conserve them. Nonetheless, these cities are increasingly under pressure, by globalization, climate change, and tourism. An integral approach,...

“What is OUV” revisited: A computational interpretation on the statements of outstanding universal value

The Statements of Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) concerns the core justification for nominating and inscribing cultural and natural heritage properties on the UNESCO World Heritage List, ever since 2007. Ten criteria are specified and measured independently for the selection process. The 2008 ICOMOS Report “What is OUV” has been a successful...

WHOSe Heritage: Classification of UNESCO World Heritage Statements of "outstanding Universal Value" with Soft Labels

The UNESCO World Heritage List (WHL) includes the exceptionally valuable cultural and natural heritage to be preserved for mankind. Evaluating and justifying the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) is essential for each site inscribed in the WHL, and yet a complex task, even for experts, since the selection criteria of OUV are not mutually...

Imagine the Old Town of Lijiang: Contextualising community participation for urban heritage management in China

The UNESCO 2011 Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) states community participation is a pivotal tool for integrating heritage practices into sustainable urban development. While community participation is significant but limited in China, various participatory methods have been developed, tested and evaluated worldwide. For...

Authenticiteit, een geloofwaardig begrip?

Ruim veertig jaar geleden, in 1978, werd een nummer van het Bulletin knob gewijd aan de problematiek van de architectuurrestauratie. De bijdragen weerspiegelen de standpunten van de auteurs over restauratiefilosofie en -theorie en het is opvallend dat het begrip authenticiteit toen al centraal stond in het debat. Gekoppeld aan een ander begrip,...

Monitoring Climate Change in World Heritage Properties: Evaluating Landscape-Based Approach in the State of Conservation System

Climate change is increasingly being recognized as a threat to natural and cultural World Heritage (WH) sites worldwide. Through its interaction with other stressors, climate change accelerates existing risks while also creating new obstacles. A more considerable focus is needed in both research and practice to explore proactive measures for...

World heritage mapping in a standard-based structured geographical information system

This research aims at the study of the (dynamic) relationship between the World Heritage sites and the related human settlements development. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) can be useful to represent the involved information and to analyze such relationship. However, an effective harmonized structure and unique storage of possibly...

State-of-the-practice: Assessing community participation within Chinese cultural World Heritage properties

Community participation is a key part of heritage management. However, in practice, unlike natural heritage, the nature of community participation within cultural heritage is seldom assessed, nor are there theoretical frameworks developed to baseline such assessments. To fill this knowledge gap, this paper developed and tested an assessment...