Location, location, location: exploring the importance of place for arts organisations

Many arts managers and marketers are looking intently at the importance of high-speed communication and other technologies for the creation of virtual places. These places in cyberspace can only be accessed via a computer terminal and high-speed telecommunications tools. This paper asserts that there is still much for managers and marketers to learn about the importance of physical spaces for the arts. We use a model of place and apply it to three Australian arts organisations located in heritage buildings. One organisation failed, the other changed ownership, the third moved location. The findings demonstrate the importance of place and of strategy in determining place. We note the tension between the strategy, the venue, the objects, and the essential task and call for further analysis of place(s) for the arts.

Enough energy to get half way to the moon

A proposal to abandon Melbourne's Supreme Court for a new high-tech facility prompted quite an outcry of dismay when it was reported in the Melbourne press earlier this year, and has highlighted sustainability issues in relation to heritage buildings in Victoria.

Conservation of urban historic districts in China : present models of integration and utilization of historic resources and challenges for authenticity

Chinese urban historic districts retain abundant urban traditional features, local characteristics and historic architecture. They not only gather and display urban cultural heritage but extend and develop urban historic culture and social traditions. In 1964 the “Venice Charter” expanded the concept and scope of historical and cultural heritage conservation from individual building heritage, historical sites comprising heritage buildings and historical environments to whole historic districts. At the same time, authenticity was adopted as a principle of heritage conservation. In 1994 the Nara Document on Authenticity confirmed that authenticity is of great importance to the conservation of cultural heritage. In 2003, “The Hoi An Declaration on Conservation of Historic Districts of Asia” reinforced the significance, integrity and authenticity of historic district conservation. In China, with the accelerated urbanization process and improved living conditions of urban residents, the unique values and historic and cultural heritage of historic districts is being destroyed. Considerable historic and cultural heritage has been reconstructed, leading to the loss of authenticity of these historic districts. This paper provides an overview of the Chinese situation. It highlights the problems and demonstrates a clear need to protect the authenticity of these historic districts. Authenticty is evaluated against various Chinese conservation of historic districts having regard to international experience and methods. As a result, it will be demonstrated that conservation modes of authenticity of urban historic districts in China and historic resources should be employed to ensure: 1) the restoration and conservation of historic architecture; 2) the preservation and renovation of old spaces and structures; 3) the integration and coordination of historic and new buildings; and the 4) the continuation and succession of historic culture and local tradition.

Villages that never were : the museum village as a heritage genre

Villages of relocated buildings now constitute a phenomenon of the world's repertoire of heritage. They go by a multitude of names depending on particular inflection: open air museum, folk museum, living history museum, heritage village, museum village and so forth. 1 This paper reviews the context of the form of the genre's manifestation in Australia, where it is often known as the `pioneer village'. They are the fruit of a populist vision of national history which celebrates white rural settlement as its central theme. In practice, the villages manifest a deep commitment to collecting and saving old buildings as the meaningful construction of a favourite historical identity. But the generation that established Australia's villages has been overtaken. Today, the intersection of museum villages with the managerialist pressures of local economy enhancement and modern professional standards of heritage management challenge most villages' survival.

Old buildings, new landscape : Redeveloping historic neighbourhoods - A case study of Xin Tian Di, Shanghai, China

This paper explores the use of tradition by the redevelopment project ofXin Tian Di (New Heaven and Earth) in Shanghai. The paper also identifies the implications of this urban redevelopment project to historic quarters in Chinese cities. An enormous commercial success and new Shanghai icon, Xin Tian Di project has transformed a former residential neighbourhood into a high end entertainment precinct. While the redevelopment ofXin Tian Di has retained the architectural features of the place, the use and interpretation of tradition by the project is problematic. The project shows a tendency where the established idea of tradition is destabilised and challenged. It also highlights issues of cultural authenticity in the redevelopment of historic quarters.

Valuing local built heritage in a global setting : identity & visual perceptions of cultural built heritage in Northern Ireland

‘In these troubled times with the world in search of its bearings and way ward minds using the terms “culture” and “civilization” in an attempt to turn human beings against one another, there is an urgent need to remember how fundamental cultural diversity is to humanity itself’ (UNESCO 2002). The progressive idea of culture can be used in regressive ways by extremists who used it occasionally to pursue the politics of xenophobia and exclusion. The hypothesis that different communities can share the same culture but have different visual perception of their built environment might seems contradictory. It is essential to describe what is meant by the ‘same culture’. The ever evolving changes of definition and re-definition of the word has not yet settled. This paper adopts the descriptive definition of culture while challenging its interpretation. The descriptive definition refers to ‘all the characteristics activities by a people’. While this description is generally accepted, the interpretation of what ‘a people’ means is divisive. It is not clear how Eliot defines ‘a people’. Is the term genetically prescribed or is ‘a people’ place related? And what about the moral and religious orientation? This paper argues that culture is basically place related and the forces that shape a culture of a ‘people’ are deeply embedded in the environmental forces that also shape other aspects of the place making and its identity. The paper addresses the questions of conflicts, value systems, and culture definitions and the inseparable links with architecture aesthetics.

Local built heritage in Northern Ireland is taken as a case study. Unlike many parts of the world, visual perceptions in Northern Ireland is well recognised with iconic as well as formal representations. The population is well aware of the signified as well as the signifiers. The boundaries between iconology and formalism theories are very blurred in the Northern Ireland context. This paper examines how the two communities visually perceive their shared built heritage and the extent of overlapping between the understanding of iconic and formalist visual representations in the built environment. The paper takes the buildings of the successful economic ventures of the shirt industry in the 19th century as a case study. The case study provides an insight of how a signified value of a successful economic regeneration initiative that is deeply imbedded in the social structure and within the urban fabric can overcome divisive visual perception. The paper examines the possibility of building upon the historical success of the shirt industry to promote architectural cultural dialogue in which cultural built heritage in Derry is able to facilitate knowledge creation and social capital in different arenas.

Shanghai's western townscape and changing perceptions of cultural heritage in China

[No Abstract]

Warrock collection: original line drawings by fourth year Deakin University architecture students of the Warrock Homestead, a local heritage listed property in Victoria

This collection includes the original line drawings by fourth year Deakin University architecture students of a well known local heritage listed property, the Warrock homestead. The Warrock homestead consisted of detailed original timber structures of the 19th century. The drawings are the result of a conservation project funded by the Commonwealth Government of Australia National Estate Grants program. In 1999 a further deposit of original reports relating to individual buildings on the property was received. The collection consists of monographs, photographs and photograph negatives, architectural drawings, VHS tapes and ephemera.

Post-war migrant built heritage in Melbourne : from assimilation to multiculturalism

If place identities are created by ascribing subjective meaning to sites and buildings it follows that diverse groups will consider place meaning differently. This poses a challenge for the selection and interpretation of heritage sites in plural societies where notions of architectural significance are likely to conflict. Basing heritage policy on the premise of a shared heritage is particularly challenging when the cultural traditions of the past underlie definitions of architectural significance in a more culturally diverse present. This paper presents an introduction to research exploring the inclusion of twentieth century migrant built heritage in Australia. Through selected examples of recently recognised heritage sites in Melbourne, the paper considers how migrant heritage is included and what this reveals about the cultural traditions underlying Australian heritage discourses. The inclusion of migrant places suggests that there is an initial shift in heritage discourses where notions of architectural significance have expanded to include the history of post-war migration. However, the examples raise questions about the nature of cultural inclusivity in heritage frameworks.

Asian Cities: Cultural heritage and the interplay between nation building and internationalism

It is over a decade since the volume The Disappearing Asian City (Logan 2002) was published. An edited volume bringing together a number of experts on the region, the book identified the threats facing buildings, archaeological sites and the historic character of cities, as well as the myriad of challenges of raising civic and regulatory awareness about the value of cultural heritage in times of rapid transformation. It was a set of concerns and arguments that remain as pertinent as ever. Those who have lived and worked in different parts of Asia over the past decade on cultural heritage issues, frequently use the terms 'extraordinary' or 'bewildering' to describe the scale and speed of transformation that has taken place. Indeed, for those concerned about maintaining continuities between past and present - whether they be social, spiritual or material - the development of cities, the wholesale movements of communities in and out of urban landscapes, together with the dramatic increase in industries like tourism, has often been disorienting, and in some cases deeply confronting: both professionally and emotionally. And yet, to focus on loss and destruction would miss a whole set of other fascinating, emergent and important trends. As numerous publications in the intervening period have shown, cultural heritage has become a topic of intense interest and debate in the majority of Asian societies, for a host of reasons (Askew 2010; Broudehoux 2004; Pai 2013).

The destruction of heritage: rock art in the Burrup Peninsula

The destruction of rock art in the Burrup Peninsula, performed by several mammoth industries strategically located in the Peninsula since the 1960s, allows me to analyse the concept of heritage within a global history of art and find meaning in the difficult task of interpreting rock art. The Burrup Peninsula not only hosts the largest rock art site in the world, but also one of the largest deposits of natural gas, iron ore and salt. As a consequence, the land (sacred to the Indigenous people), becomes extremely important in order to sustain the booming economy of Australia. In this difficult negotiation between heritage and progress the rock art is embedded with new meanings and the heritage becomes ephemeral. Failing to include the site in the World Heritage Site list created by UNESCO, the roles of identity and memory are contested by the two groups represented on each side of the debate: on one hand, the Aboriginal Traditional owners and the archaeologists; on the other, the Australian government and the cultural establishment that denies the rock art an aesthetic significance by considering it “primitive” and “archaic”. The debate becomes even more pertinent after realizing that the Australian government has flagged other buildings and natural parks as World Heritage Sites, while the rock art in the Burrup Peninsula is catalogued as national, but not World, Heritage. As a result, the concept of heritage can be defined on several levels: local, regional, national and international.