Ar Ana Pereira Roders

Urban Heritage: Putting the Past into the Future

Abstract This article presents part of the results of doctoral research focused on the contribution of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s historic urban landscape approach to the theory of urban heritage management. This paper argues that the historic urban landscape approach reflects a century of evolution on theories related to urban heritage management. Moreover, it confirms that heritage management is going through a process of change both in theory and practice, from focusing on isolated built heritage assets, towards a landscape-based approach, adopting notions such as the intangible, setting and context, and urban and sustainable development. Next, this process of change is related in theory to the need for a more integrated approach towards urban heritage management, combining policies and practices on conservation with those of urban development. Furthermore, this article discusses the challenges and possible contributions of the landscape-based approach to urban heritage management. Lastly, this article pleads for the need not only to develop, but also to assess the adequacy of the tools and methods to support the implementation of such an integrated approach, because only then can the sustainable development and conservation of urban heritage be fostered.

Editorial : bridging cultural heritage and sustainable development

Purpose – The paper aims to provide an introduction to the new journal, its scope and papers in the inaugural issue.Design/methodology/approach – The paper introduces the new journal by exploring the normative foundations of cultural heritage management and how this can be used to construct a bridge to processes of sustainable development. In doing so, the rationale is explained for a journal with this specialism, like JCHMSD, including potential areas for research. All this then is linked to the theme and respective papers especially selected for the inaugural issue.Findings – Increasingly the role of cultural heritage in processes of regeneration and sustainable development of cities and regions is being explored, while at the same time the international debate is intensifying as regards a re‐orientation of the concept of sustainability and to re‐emphasize its meaning in clear and unambiguous terms. In the build‐up to the review of the Millennium Development Goals in 2015, the international community by...

Guest editorial : World Heritage cities management

Purpose – This article aims to introduce the special issue of the journal Facilities on “World Heritage cities management”, together with the respective articles.Design/methodology/approach – This introduction addresses the topic of world Heritage cities management and its relevance to science and society. In so doing, it indirectly points to the emerging field of cultural heritage management within facilities management.Findings – Even though the management of cultural heritage assets is nothing new for facilities managers, cultural heritage management as a field of research can be considered at a younger stage of development than other related studies, such as the discipline of architectural conservation, which originated in the nineteenth century with the advent of modernity. The application of management practices to immovable cultural heritage assets emerged as recently as the 1990s. At a time in which the role of culture and heritage in processes of sustainable development is gaining more ground, th...

Historic cities as model of sustainability

Purpose – This paper is an editorial to JCHMSDs Volume 2 Issue 1. Its purpose is to introduce the selection of papers in the issue.Design/methodology/approach – The paper discusses the increased focus of national and local authorities, as well as multilateral agencies, on historic cities in a search for a more sustainable process of urban development that integrates environmental, social and cultural concerns into the planning, design and implementation of urban management programmes and projects. The recent adoption of a new policy instrument by UNESCO, the 2011 Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape, is providing a set of general principles in support of sustainable urban heritage management and the paper further explains the first results of a field testing of the embedded Historic Urban Landscape approach in two different geo‐cultural regions of the world (i.e. Central Asia and East Africa). It points to fields of further research, which are linked to the papers selected for this issue.Findin...

Wedding cultural heritage and sustainable development: three years after

Purpose – This paper is an editorial to JCHMSDs Volume 4, Issue 1 and its selection of papers. The purpose of this paper is to reflect upon the first three years of editorship, reporting a critical self-assessment on the progress achieved today in relation to JCHMSDs initial aims and objectives, embedded in the state-of-the-art. Design/methodology/approach – The paper builds upon editorship observations exchanged among the editorial team over the last three years and a literature review on the 42 papers published in JCHMSD. The literature review focuses primarily on: purposes and design/methodology/approaches. The ways forward sets a research agenda, challenging those contributing to the unexplored questions with their research and/or practices, to join the JCHMSD community and enable a broader audience to, at least, learn from them. Findings – JCHMSDs three aims have been achieved. The journal is publishing innovative research and practices, relating cultural heritage management and sustainable develo...

Guidance on heritage impact assessments: Learning from its application on World Heritage site management

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to introduce the papers selected for the current issue. Furthermore, it provides a common background in presenting and discussing the role of heritage impact assessments, considering the projected growth of their implementation not exclusive to World Heritage properties and their potential role in bringing cultural heritage management and sustainable development closer together.Design/methodology/approach – From a brief introduction to the background and state‐of‐the‐art on heritage impact assessments, this article describes and explains the ten guidelines recently published to assist cultural heritage managers on the application of heritage impact assessments for World Heritage properties. After this, the role of heritage impact assessments in bridging cultural heritage management and sustainable development will be discussed and new doors opened for further research within the field.Findings – Ten recommendations to structure and classify heritage impact assessme...

How can urbanization be sustainable? : a reflection on the role of city resources in global sustainable development

This article is a contribution to the debate on the role of city resources in global sustainable development. It discusses the evolution of models in which urbanization is defined to be sustainable, as well as, their relation to the conservation of city resources. Further, it provides an in-depth reflection on the UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape, reviewing its elaboration and implementation, both in practice and research. The results are expected to help government officials, academics, activists, or interested citizens identify and address the sustainability of urbanization, as well as, discuss the role of conservation of city resources in global sustainable development.

Road map for application of the HUL approach in China

Purpose – This article is an editorial to JCHMSDs Volume 3, Issue 1 and aims to provide an overview to its selection of papers.Design/methodology/approach – The article builds upon a previous editorial on the implementation of the new UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL). It discusses a research and training programme under development by the World Heritage Institute of Training and Research in Asia and the Pacific (WHITRAP) and Tongji Universitys Advanced Research Institute for Architecture and Urban Planning, in Shanghai, China, to help determining a strategy for the application of the HUL approach in China.Findings – The HUL approach facilitates a structuring and priority setting of competing needs and demands for the integration of urban development and heritage management processes, which is perhaps most pressing in the current Chinese context of rapid and large‐scale urbanization. However, its precise meaning, and therefore its merit, is still poorly understood in China due ...

Editorial: initiating cultural heritage research to increase Europe's competitiveness

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss the contribution of European Commission (EC) initiatives to stimulate cultural heritage research over the last 20 years and the contribution of the research results to cultural heritage management and sustainable development.Design/methodology/approach – From a brief introduction to the EC initiatives related to cultural heritage, the paper continues with an overview of the research projects so far funded by EC Framework Programmes. It includes the main conclusions and recommendations reached during the NET‐HERITAGE conference last March, in support to the debate on the existing gaps, and to suggest ways forward, which can be useful to research institutes as well as other funding organizations.Findings – Although the EC should be commended for its substantial contribution to the field of cultural heritage research over the last 20 years, it is the first, however, to acknowledge that this is just the beginning and that much more needs to be done...

Aligning agendas for sustainable development in the post 2015 world

Purpose – This paper is an editorial to JCHMSDs Volume 4 Issue 2 and its selection of papers. Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents some of the ongoing discussions at the international level on the establishment of new United Nations global objectives for development, known as the Sustainable Development Goals, which should guide progress in the world for the next 15 years. Two agendas for wise heritage management are discussed, one for the protection of nature and the other for better use of culture, which taken together could make a significant difference in stewarding the worlds precious resources. Findings – While the previous Millennium Development Goals, established in 2000 as a set of eight goals with 19 targets, have been criticised as too broad, the current proposed Sustainable Development Goals, containing 17 goals and 169 targets to measure progress, are perhaps too many and too detailed and thereby risk failure of implementation. It also illustrates the ambition and the challenges...