F1306 Training in UNESCO World Heritage Studies, Giorgio Gianighian

The course is divided in four modules, in such a order as to allow the students to follow the process of natural, cultural and mix heritage in the world, starting with the fathers of the discipline in the 19^th century and including its twentieth century development, reaching down to the 1972 UNESCO World Heritage Convention. The implementation of this charter will be analysed in a few countries and for some cases the preparation of the Nomination Dossier will be studied. The final task will concern the Nomination of Venice and its Lagoon, with the problems still unsolved a quarter of a century after the Nomination itself: the students will be invited to solve them.

Module 1: History and Theory of Restoration

It is during the nineteenth century that restoration and conservation became real issues in Europe: our efforts will focus on the debate between the theories of Viollet-le-Duc and Ruskin, as representatives of opposite concepts of the monument and its preservation. Twentieth century theoretical development brought to into being the various Charters on conservation, along with the UNESCO World Heritage Convention and its implementation instrument, the Practical Guidelines. These are constantly in the process of adapting to an ever richer and more complex reality, to be analysed in this part of the course.

Module 2: Analysing some Nominations around the world

In order to get acquainted with the Nomination procedures, the problems to be dealt with and, in more than one case, the contradictions, a few examples of world sites will be analysed, starting from Europe and the problematic of reconstruction, with the study-case of the Historic Centre of Warsaw, Poland (1980). Then an example of colonial heritage in a living city, with the Port, Fortresses and Group of Monuments of Cartagena, Colombia (1984). How archaeology and urban conservation are considered in a country today torn by a civil war: the Archaeological Site of Leptis Magna (1982) and the Old Town of Ghadames (1986) in Libya. The case of the Historic Villages of Shirakawa-go and Gokayama in Japan (1995), dealing not only with built heritage but with its connected landscape as well. The concepts of authenticity and integrity will be examined highlighting the Nara Declaration (1994).

Module 3: Nomination fieldwork

How do we work on a Nomination Dossier? What happens when the conservation standards required by UNESCO for WHS are not respected? What is the action of an expert when helping the State Party in promoting the management of a site? These are the questions to be tackled in this part of the course, analysing examples in parts of the world where the local cultural framework creates difficulties to a standard European centred mentality in conservation. The study-cases will include a problematic proposed Site in Armenia, the confrontation with reconstruction aspects, as on The Old Bridge Area of the Old City of Mostar, Bosnia Herzegovina (2006); the sites of Kathmandu Valley, Nepal (1979; 2006), where the analyses on heritage erosion helped to cancel the same sites from the WH List in Danger, to conclude with two recent  field missions at Ayutthaya in Thailand ("Did the Fall 2011 flooding effect the WH Site? A mission report") and at the Armenian Monastic Ensambles of  Islamic Republic of Iran ("Saint Stepanos and Saints Thaddeos fortified Armenian Convents : the Nomination and the nowadays conservation and management issues").

Module 4: Venice Nomination exercise

A Management Plan is an essential requirement for a WHS. How should it work and how should it be organised is the subject of this last Module. The chosen study-case will be Venice itself: the entire city with its lagoon is a UNESCO Heritage Site since 1987 and its Management Plan has not as yet been prepared. We will try to verify if the legal framework for the protection of the city is working, if almost forty years of urban restoration by the Special Law for the Protection of Venice have produced positive results for the city, and to understand the wounds to the urban fabric caused by both the water and tourist flooding. Summing up the results of our analyses, we will be able to validate the Nomination Dossier criteria, the division of the core and buffer zone, and finally to plan the structure of Venice WHS Management Plan, writing the abstracts of each chapter of the Management Plan.