Grete Swensen

Capturing the intangible and tangible aspects of heritage: personal versus official perspectives in cultural heritage management.

Abstract In discussions on how to handle local heritage values, local values or insider-ness are often seen as synonymous with intangible aspects of heritage. At the same time, expert knowledge is usually associated with material objects, whereby experts have had the power to define what to preserve. In this study of three Norwegian towns, complementary and interdisciplinary methods have been used to address the relationship between personal and official perspectives on cultural heritage values and their tangible and intangible aspects. Results from interviews asking people to describe places they value in the area in which they live have been compared with results from a study of the official heritage plans in three selected towns. The study shows that a gap has unintentionally been constructed in the understanding of cultural heritage. To bridge the gap additional methods for documentation of cultural heritage and their contexts have to be developed. Experiments with various forms of active user participation are one way to introduce new additional approaches and thereby create local engagement and awareness of the role cultural heritage can play.

Urban planning and industrial heritage – a Norwegian case study

Purpose – The purpose of this papter is to examine the role heritage considerations have played in the transformation of industrial areas in three Norwegian cities, Oslo, Drammen and Larvik. The location, scale and rough appearance of industrial sites stemming from the industrial era makes these places locations for new cultural and other recreational activities made possible through architectonic interventions. Design/methodology/approach – A comparative case study based on examinations of a series of plans, site investigations and interviews with planners, developers, architects and heritage managers. Findings – The study has revealed that private-public partnerships today prevail parts of Norwegian planning. The role and strength of the state, the municipality, the private developers and the heritage management as partners varies, however. While the state as well as the heritage management played an essential role in all stages in the development process in Oslo, the private developers and the public p...

A green space between life and death – a case study of activities in Gamlebyen Cemetery in Oslo, Norway

ABSTRACT The amount of green space in urban areas is shrinking. Densification and the introduction of new user groups in most cities today is leading to more intensive use of public spaces and the need for more space. Urban cemeteries constitute a unique type of public space: while some may consider them primarily religious and contemplative spaces, others see them as primarily recreational or as heritage sites steeped in history. The authors examine the extent to which the pressure on cities’ open green areas combined with influences from intercultural encounters is mirrored in the use and character of cemeteries today – exemplified by Gamlebyen Cemetery (Gamlebyen Gravlund) in Oslo, Norway. They used observations in combination with short semi-structured interviews with those using the cemetery. The findings of pilot study conducted in 2013 suggest that religious aspects played a minor role and that the recreational aspects were more important to most of the interviewees. Many of them considered that the cemetery provided a pleasant green walkway on their way to work, busses or city services. The cemetery offered a combination of calmness, an aesthetically pleasant environment, and ‘cultivated nature’ in an urban context, and was thus an arena that invited respect and esteem.

Diversity in a Norwegian agrarian landscape: integrating biodiversity, cultural and social perspectives into landscape management.

Environmental management and planning represent a relatively static and detached view of the agrarian landscape, contrasting with a dynamic perspective focusing on human participation, action, and perception of the landscape. This perspective focuses on species and nature types in the agrarian landscape as a result of dynamic processes. We present an interdisciplinary and historical case study of Kaus farm in Gudbrandsdalen, Norway, focusing on both external factors or drivers influencing landscape diversity – such as environmental, agricultural and cultural heritage policy – and the farmers decisions and practices. The mapping of botanical and cultural heritage shows that, even over a 60-year period, the farms biodiversity has changed in accordance with these forces. The study recommends that future landscape management should regard knowledge of the factors that have changed the diversity of an agrarian landscape as being of equal importance to knowledge of the existing diversity.

Churchyards and cemeteries throughout the centuries — praxis and legislation

ABSTRACT Cemeteries belong to spaces where a clear-cut division between public and private property is debatable. In Norway today such sites are formally considered public spaces — free to access all year round and open for all citizens independent of economic status and social belonging. In a longer time perspective both accessibility and property rights related to cemeteries have changed fundamentally. This article examines the laws and regulations which have influenced the ownership rights to cemeteries based on a close-up examination of historic documents. Concerning the burial practice in Norway, a floating border exists between private–public spaces which has been apparent since far back in time. In essence, churches and cemeteries in Norway have alternated between being privately owned or owned by the public, but this has not been decisive for peoples use of the cemetery. Until approximately 1900 these areas served two purposes: on one side, burial of dead people and, on the other, to serve as a place for socially conditioned activity. Todays use, as it is described through stories told by people at the two cemeteries in question, shows that for many users these sites are still perceived as a kind of in-between area of the private–public realm. In the future the management of urban cemeteries has to balance the different demands put on such sites. This includes upholding their character as memory sites as well as ensuring that they can accommodate the new requirements of an increasingly culturally diverse urban population.

Managing historic resources in active farming landscapes: National priorities and local practices

Purpose – To counteract processes of landscape deterioration, marginalisation and loss of cultural heritage due to rural restructuring of farming in late-modern Norwegian society, an agricultural landscape scheme started up in 2009. The purpose of this paper is to examine the way this recently introduced strategy of directing particular resources to a group of selected agricultural landscapes contributes in instigating integrated landscape management and to gain insight in the role cultural heritage play. Design/methodology/approach – The authors ask how potential conflicts between local interpretations of cultural heritage and the assessments made by authoritative heritage managers are expressed in the initial planning documents. Findings – While the reasoning and selection of the two areas are strongly influenced by the authoritative heritage discourse, the agricultural landscape scheme is nonetheless open to local adaptations and adjustments, and the two plans vary both in form and contents due to the ...

Chapter 9 A Heritage Claim to Public Space: Examples from a Mixed Neighbourhood in Drammen, Norway

The multi-ethnic neighbourhood of Stromso in Drammen in Norway is facing a major transformation. The town has undergone major renewal processes during the last decade and has been presented as a successful example of urban development both nationally and internationally. In the chapter, we look closer at what spaces and qualities are underlined as significant in this neighbourhood by the examined appropriators of public space, and how their views relate to the qualities stated in planning documents for the area. Public spaces and meeting points can play a vital role in safeguarding diversity and urban cultural heritage associated with these spaces. Public space represents physically defined structures (streets, squares, parks), but even more importantly a social space offering possibilities of encounter and activity otherwise not displayed in the city. These qualities might be perceived as heritage values and significant constituents inherent in public space. This makes public space the keeper of values that are seen as basic urban qualities.

Pressure on the Fringe of the Cities

One of the major challenges within today’s social development is to find useful methods within physical planning. At the same time as planning is meant to append to an overall picture and be shaped within the form and functional ideals adjusted to both present and prospective demands, one has to assume that the cultural heritage is taken care of as a potential resource. These three demands are today strongly pulling in different directions and often seem to exclude each other. For a better understanding of the forces that commonly come forward in local planning, it is important to understand the role of cultural heritage.

Urban cemeteries’ potential as sites for cultural encounters

Abstract Population increase has drawn attention to the need in cities for easily accessible and attractive public spaces that will promote interaction regardless of gender, age, ethnicity and religious belief. This paper focuses on the role urban cemeteries play in a culturally and religiously diverse society. Norway is described as an increasingly secularised society. Immigration and transmigration, on the other hand, have brought a revived interest in religion and interreligious interaction. We explore two questions that relate to the cemetery as a public shared urban space: The first concerns the need for communities of all faiths and none to access burial space that meets their need. The second relates to the appropriateness of using cemetery as amenity space in a multicultural context. Diverse qualitative methods have been used; a focus group interview with participants from different religious and life-philosophy communities, interviews with key informants representing various religious communities and with visitors in two cemeteries in Oslo in 2014. The findings imply that there is a commonality that bridges differences: sharing human compassion. These sites have a potential in stimulating intercultural and interreligious encounters. Their special character as open shared urban sites can increase understanding and acceptance of each other’s difference and hereby render strangeness and differences harmless.

Alternative perspectives? The implementation of public participation in local heritage planning

Recently, increased attention has been paid to the importance of everyday landscapes in the Western world, and a stronger political will to involve local participation in planning processes has emerged. The authors discuss the implementation of the political will to engage the Norwegian public in local heritage planning and whether or not this new role can have a mobilising effect on heritage protection. In Norway, cultural heritage managers have established methods for identifying valuable heritage assets in cultural historic landscapes. As increased responsibility for cultural heritage management is given to municipalities, more municipalities are making their own heritage plans to improve local heritage management. The article investigates how cultural heritage management in everyday landscapes is taking place, how heritage plans are developed, how local knowledge is involved, and what assets local residents appreciate in their environment, based on an in-depth study of two medium-sized Norwegian regional towns. The results show that local stakeholders were often invited to participate in planning processes, but that their contributions were largely kept out of official plans at the final stage. Further, the study revealed that memories and personal histories related to heritage appreciations are important elements in building identity, both at a personal level and at a local level.