Communities involvement for urban preservation: a matter of experience? Thematic seminar B: Social...

Communities involvement for urban preservation: a

matter of experience?

Thematic seminar B: Social aspects of preventive conservation

UNESCO Chair on Preventive Conservation – Lemaire Center

Leuven-Heverlee, Arenberg Castle, 25 March 2009

Drs. Marco Acri – University of Nova [email protected]; [email protected]

Campo della Chiesa 3, 30132 Venice

mailto:[email protected]


Why the topic of communities involvement or communities participation entered the

discussion on heritage preservation?





Are we targeting communities or heritage

preservation?







Preserving communities: heritage preservation is a leading activity needing for strong policies by the authorities, in respect of the scientific

achievements in the field. People participation in these policies is a mean for their survival, but

not enough

Communities involvement has been developing mostly for supporting health and environmental objectives. Basic

living conditions satisfaction is the most noble application of communities involvement, cause it feeds the primary

need of individuals





The most limited application of heritage preservation through communities participation are urban

environments and urban architecture, were direct actions by people is limited. Is more involvement



Preserving heritage (viewpoint of technicians) : involvement and participation are fund-raising activities,

aiming at supplying those resources heritage owners cannot guarantee. Educational policies are essential.“By volunteering, people satisfy their need to do good; by

donating, they express their appreciation for an activity that may not be realized in a market setting.” (Klamer)

(Resources are scarce, but also in other sectors?)







BUT HOW WE DEFINE A COMMUNITY?





“nothing is more instructive…than the way Spinoza conceives the common. All bodies, he says, have in common to express the divine attribute of extension…and yet what is common cannot in any case constitute the essence of the single case. Decisive here is the idea of an inessential commonality, a solidarity that in no way concerns an essence. Taking-place, the communication of singularities in the attribute of extension, does not unite them in essence, but scatters them in existence (Agamben, the coming community, 1993

The community without community (Nancy 1991)





The idea of community in Agamben and Nancy is an alternative conception of community that produces new constitutions and networks of relationships that are not hinged upon predisposed notions of community and identity.

It is a community which is concerned with the relations that are formed across categories (gender, sexuality, culture, class) which at the same time recognises that this community without-identity is also absolutely unrepresentable





Collective or public goods are goods held in ownership by a collectivity, usually a state or another political entity. Their possession has a legal status. They are marked by non-rivalry in consumption and non-excludability. Their benefits are quasi universal in terms of countries, people and generations. Global public goods benefit humanity in its entirety.

Common goods are shared by a group of people without a clear legal definition of ownership. In the rule, no single person or legal identity can claim ownership of a common good. The members of the group enjoy the fruits of their common good; they cannot exclude other members but usually exclude non-members. Rivalry is conceivable both inside and outside the group.

Goods are those tangibles and intangibles that have value for people and for which the possession and enjoyment of them, they would be willing to sacrifice resources





The common goods are shared, and have to be shared to be useful;

The consumption of common good is joint, but it could be limited: the process is generated within a limited but usually not very well defined group of people;

The common good is owned by those who participate in its production, protection and consumption;

Ownership does not imply economic rights like the right to sell, but more social rights like membership, status, recognition and respect of other participants;

To participants, the good is something from which they benefit;

Participants contribute to the good when they participate in all spheres that concern the good.





The common goods create the community

The collective good is creating the collectivity

Present societies, especially in urban areas, are partly loosing their common goods. Once people were linked by mutual relationships of needs: there was a butcher, needing a baker, needing a shoes maker, etc. Dialogue was frequent because of a concrete need to stay closed.

At present, people is choosing a city because of its environment, its location, because they find their job there, for studying. There life is not forced to be in connection to others cause everything can be achieved without a real need of relationship. Thus we are apparently only collectivities.





If the common goods create the community

We can talk about communities of Heritage

Museums,Historic buildingsCultural landscapes

SportDrinksetc.

And involving these communities is partly easy, it’s a fund-raising exercise because members of those communities share a target, have the same mission, are satisfying the same need





Walter Benjamn was the first talking about flaneur, especially in his Passagenwerk, describing the experience of strolling in Paris.

This point out the movements of individuals in respect to their attitude to get involved in urban solicitations

the urban landscape changes with the position of the viewer, or even better, the “flaneur-person leisurely strolling through its

streets. ” – a person leisurely strolling through its streets. (Greffe 2008)

Cities is consumed through a cartographic approach





The preservation of urban cultural landscapes not only implies architecture, but also the experiences and the links among peopleIn particular:· to provide better representation of the values of a place as the focal point of community identity and way of life;· to maintain and promote the authenticity of historic urban centres, by preserving the culturally generative relationships associated with those centres; and· to determine the appropriateness and value of a proposed intervention to a specific area (Thomas Trudeau, Lemaire Centre 2006)

1. Communities

2. Involvement

3. Preservation

4. Historic urban landscape

5. Experience





“is simply that citizen participation is a categorical term

forcitizen power. It is the

redistribution of power that enables the have-not citizens,

presently excludedfrom the political and economic

processes, to be deliberately included in the future.” (Sherrey

R. Arnstein, Ladder of citizen participation)





In urban historic areas, an important stress could be given by the definition of communities and of common heritage.





Different development of communities along history. In European, Mediterranean and south-American contexts, architectures and urbanism have been developing and reproducing by adaptation two different specific models until the industrial revolution

The industrial revolution has been standardising building techniques, appearing as first globalisation wind



Any urban reality in the past had been founded through a strong act by a leader, an authority





Population had agreed on that authority and that leader, thus accepting regulations imposed and considering each other identical in respect of those regulations

Cities economic progresses have been characterised by the mutual relationships among individuals in respect of the formal and informal regulations given by city



As an example, today we may see a difference in Europe among northern and southern societies towards their environment.





This difference may depend on a historic different background, which is also reflected by the two different urban morphologies and the architectural popular typologies

The latin city, developed around axes and squares based on the patio house, and the northern city, then gothic, developed in circle with sequences of narrow houses



LATIN CITY





Less relationship with the urban areas

Decorations concentrated inside the familiar residence, as frescoes, stuccos, water games, etc.

Weak attention to the facades of buildings

Organisation around the patio

Each house was somehow distinctive.

Latins were much more individuals in the society



NORTHERN CITY





Higher relationship with the urban areas

Poor interiors (and richer exteriors in a second phase)

Strong attention to the facades of buildings (later phase)

Closer communication with city’s life

Although the exterior decoration, houses were identical

Northern people were much less individuals in the society – nomad tradition



These differences are still evident in the urban landscape approach, thus communities involvement participation processes may have very different purposes





These different development are also very relevant in terms of relationship between historic architectural typologies and urban morphology, issue to be understood by the society

To this we should associate the achievements of conservation theory, thus informing population about the acceptability of interventions and their motivation





Manuale d’uso per la casaChe cosa manutenere per allungare la vita alla tua casa





COMUNE DI VENEZIADirezione Attività Produttive,

Sviluppo EconomicoServizio Attività Produttive

LEGGE REGIONALE 37/2004 “INTERVENTI PER LA VALORIZZAZIONE

DEI LOCALI STORICI”

BANDO DI CENSIMENTO DEI LOCALI STORICI NEL TERRITORIO DEL

COMUNE DI VENEZIA

Financial constraint: scarce capacity/impossibility by public authorities to preserve and enhance tangible heritage;





Political constraint: Impossibility to apply long term policies for heritage preservation and enhancement

Social constraint: guaranteeing the preservation of existing communities (and traditions?)



Financial suggestion: growing collaboration with the private sector and shifting of investments on “common” living environments, maybe through preventive maintenance





Political suggestion: information campaign soliciting communities’ stewardship towards tangible and intangible heritage

Social suggestion: preserving the urban experience by guaranteeing services and creating conditions for the establishment of mutual relationships of need in the city or its areas. Let’s feed the affinities!



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