@inproceedings{icomos1936,
       booktitle = {ICOMOS 19th General Assembly and Scientific Symposium "Heritage and Democracy"},
           title = {Engaging local professionals for the conservation of the built environment: the Japanese "heritage manager" system},
            year = {2018},
        keywords = {ARRAY(0x560c4b910fc8)},
             url = {http://openarchive.icomos.org/id/eprint/1936/},
        abstract = {This paper analyses the birth, role and significance of the Japanese "Heritage Manager"
system, a regional initiative to engage local professionals in the creation of a sustainable urban
environment based on the conservation of cultural heritage buildings that developed after the Great
Hanshin Earthquake.
The current framework for the protection of built heritage in Japan is laid by the Law for the Protection of
Cultural Properties of 1950. However, the original scope of this law was only a small number of
monuments of exceptionally high cultural significance. The conservation and repair of these monuments
was carried out by highly specialized conservation architects licensed by the government, under the
supervision of the central Agency of Cultural Affairs.
However, the Great Hanshin Earthquake that struck Japan in 1995 caused severe damage not only to
protected monuments but also to a large number of historical buildings that at the time lacked any kind of
legal protection. It became clear then that a new approach was necessary in order to preserve those
buildings and integrate them into a comprehensive urban development strategy. In order to face this
challenge, the local administration of Hyogo (the prefecture most severely affected by the disaster) in
cooperation with the local association of architects devised the "Heritage Manager" system, a training
program aimed at providing local professionals (architects and cultural policy experts) with a set of basic
skills for building conservation (survey techniques, drafting repair projects, sustainable urban planning
and disaster prevention).
Since its creation in 2001, similar initiatives have been implemented by other local administrations all
over Japan. The "heritage managers" trained in this way contribute to the protection of the local built
heritage, and are playing a key role in the recovery effort of the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake.},
          author = {Mart{\'i}nez, Alejandro}
}