Preserving Urban Landscapes as Public History - Asian Context

Na, Li (2008) Preserving Urban Landscapes as Public History - Asian Context. In: 16th ICOMOS General Assembly and International Symposium: ‘Finding the spirit of place – between the tangible and the intangible’, 29 sept – 4 oct 2008, Quebec, Canada. [Conference or Workshop Item]

Preview

PDF 80-aCN5-113.pdf Download (201kB) | Preview

Abstract (in English)

Are officially interpreted and designated memorials, historic districts, themed parks, and ethnic neighborhood dotted urban terrain truly save communities’ history? Does historic preservation always protect what is significant about the past as it claims? Whose history and whose memory gets preserved or lost? How personal and community memories are connected with or disconnected from the built environment? How to network places with authentic history that reconnect the memory on an urban scale? This paper attempts to answer those questions in Asian context. It questions the fundamental assumption behind the “themed” urban landscape, i.e. officially interpreted and designed memorials, historic sites, parks, districts and neighborhood. I argue that places with collective memory demonstrate the authentic spirit, and they cannot be artificially themed. I also ask for a returned respect for the contested, inconvenient, and sometimes difficult past. Urban landscapes should be interpreted and preserved as community-based public history by incorporating multiple voices of local communities. A shared authority in historic preservation provides potentials for designing and implementing an inclusive and democratic planning process.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Authors:	Authors Email Na, Li UNSPECIFIED
Languages:	English
Keywords:	urban landscapes; memorials; preservation; urban planning; spirit of place; historic urban landscape; Asia
Subjects:	H. HERITAGE TYPOLOGIES > 14. Historic urban landscapes O. INTANGIBLE HERITAGE > 01. Generalities D. URBANISM > 02. Urban planning E. CONSERVATION AND RESTORATION > 03. Monuments P. GEOGRAPHIC AREAS > 04. Asia and Pacific islands
ICOMOS Special Collection:	Scientific Symposium (ICOMOS General Assemblies)
ICOMOS Special Collection Volume:	2008, 16th
Depositing User:	Jose Garcia
Date Deposited:	08 Oct 2010 15:28
Last Modified:	13 Jan 2011 19:13
URI:	https://openarchive.icomos.org/id/eprint/223

Actions (login required)

View Item

Metadata

• HTML Citation
• ASCII Citation
• Full
• OpenURL ContextObject
• EndNote
• BibTeX
• MODS
• MPEG-21 DIDL
• EP3 XML
• Dublin Core
• Reference Manager
• Eprints Application Profile
• Simple Metadata
• Refer
• METS

Downloads