Event Agenda
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09:00 - 09:40InaugurationAgata Wąsowska-Pawlik, Piotr Gliński, Bogusław Kośmider, Teresa Patrício, Bogusław SzmyginAgata Wąsowska-Pawlik, ICC Director Prof. Piotr Gliński, Minister of Culture and National Heritage of Poland Bogusław Kośmider, Deputy Mayor of Kraków Prof. Teresa Patricio, President of the ICOMOS International Prof. Bogusław Szmygin, President of the ICOMOS Poland
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SPECIAL SESSION
Ukraine – cultural heritage in danger
Moderator – Agata Wąsowska-Pawlik -
09:40 - 10:00The activity of the Polish Support Center for Culture in Ukraine as an example of an institutionalised state support mechanism built on long-term bilateral cooperationKatarzyna Zalasińska
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10:00 - 10:20Current status and challenges of conservation works in the cities of Ukraine included (nominated) in the World Heritage ListMykola Bevz
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10:20 - 10:40Cities to Cities. International support of Ukraine’s heritage efforts for preservation, documentation, and future restorationMichał Krasucki
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10:40 - 11:00Challenges of the forthcoming UNESCO World Heritage Committee session: whether it can be held in a country that is deliberately destroying the Ukrainian cultural heritage. ONLINENatalia Moussienko
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11:00 - 11:20Special interventionPaolo Del Bianco
World Heritage Sites for the peace in the worldOur global community must counterbalance the current model of economic globalisation by supporting a new paradigm of leisure travel conceived and designed to foster a globalisation made up of interpersonal encounters, communication, knowledge, appreciation and respect for diversity in programmes meant to bring cultures together. Therefore the growth of the world community in peaceful coexistence needs to be fostered in those WHSs where residents, administrators, tourism chain operators, due to the high number of visitors from various cultures, undertake a coordinated commitment to create opportunities for meeting between cultures with contents that can be part of a new cultural and commercial offer and themselves become a new reason to be visited by travellers. Therefore, for a WHS, management plans must not only protect and enhance, but also manage heritage in such way to promote dialogue programmes between cultures, which is, today, a fundamental “form of protection”: Heritage for Building Peace. -
11:20 - 11:40Coffe break
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SESSION 1
The achievements and experiences of the World Heritage Convention in Europe
Moderator – Prof. Dr. Jacek Purchla -
11:40 - 12:10Key-note lecture:Mechtild Rössler
World Heritage at 50: policy and practice – key achievements and major challenges -
12:10 - 12:3035 Years of World Heritage in the UK – Achievements and Challenges. ONLINEChris BlandfordThe protection of the UK’s 33 World Heritage Sites (WHS) over 35 years reflects a commitment to the principles set out in the 1972 Convention and the need to adapt this to changing national planning, economic, and conservation priorities. From the early iconic monument WHSs, the UK list has evolved to include more extensive, diverse, and complex cultural landscapes and cityscapes. Improved approaches to management, partnership, and stakeholder involvement have in part been successfully achieved to support these. However, significant challenges remain: the low awareness of World Heritage values, reduced public spending, and increased pressures for change and development in WHSs and their buffer zones. The WHSs as a whole have become a central part of the national cultural inheritance, yet a more coherent strategy and vision to promote their role as global assets and to ensure sustainable management in the future is now needed. The recent and comprehensive WHUK Review of UK World Heritage – Asset for the Future has now set out the blueprint for this.
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12:30 - 12:50The cultural landscape, a recent heritage object to rethink protection, management, and use: the “Loire Valley between Sully-sur-Loire and Chalonnes” (France) example. ONLINELaura Verdelli, Isabelle LonguetThe introduction by UNESCO of the cultural landscape’s category into the World Heritage List in 1992 constitutes a real milestone in the way identification of valuable heritage operates, not only in terms of its recognition but also in terms of protection, management, and use. At the same time, times have come where sustainable development concerns as well as inhabitants’ participation entered the heritage management vocabulary. Constantly rethinking the perimeters of what “makes” heritage is what allows heritage and heritage notions to be dynamic and to adapt to evolving societies. We will work on these paradigm shifts helped by a series of original interviews, conducted in 2019–2020 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the inscription of the French “Loire Valley between Sully-sur-Loire and Chalonnes” cultural landscape, with major stakeholders both at the local and national territorial level and inside the World Heritage Centre. The analysis of local territorial dynamics along the past 20 years is also included in this specific field example.
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12:50 - 13:10The management of the UNESCO World Heritage Site “Venice and its Lagoon”: from theory into practice. ONLINEKatia BasiliThe paper will focus on the opportunities and difficulties in translating the UNESCO World Heritage system (guidelines, methodologies, and approaches) and in implementing the Recommendations of the World Heritage Committee so that they can be concretely understood and applied at the site level.
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13:10 - 14:00Lunch break
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SESSION 2
Experiences and problems / challenges of European cities and villages inscribed on the World Heritage List
Moderator – Łukasz Galusek -
14:00 - 14:30Key-note lecture:Matthias Ripp
Activating the UNESCO World Heritage Convention for Peace, Purpose, Prosperity and Participation. Lessons learnt from World Heritage Cities in Northwest-Europe and North-America -
14:30 - 14:5034 years and counting: The so far experience of World Heritage assets in Thessaloniki. ONLINEDimitrios ZygomalasIn 1864, the renowned French researchers Ch. Texier and R.P. Pullan published their pioneering study entitled “Byzantine Architecture”, with special emphasis on the churches of the second largest city of the Byzantine Empire, namely Thessaloniki. About 125 years later, in 1988, the city, boasting remnants of its Byzantine walls and a surviving bath from the same period, received an even greater world-wide acclaim as it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Now, 34 years since the inscription, the World Heritage assets of Thessaloniki call for an appraisal of the city’s inscription. The paper provides such an appraisal in the form of a complete and thorough evaluation of mutual impact: the consequences of the inscription for the heritage itself, and for its urban, architectural, social, economic and educational setting. The whole is wrapped up in original and didactic conclusions on the degree to which the full potential of the inscription has been achieved and what still remains to be achieved.
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14:50 - 15:10World Heritage as a balancing act – experiences from a medium-sized World Heritage city in BavariaPatricia AlberthWorld Heritage Cities face ever-increasing tasks with the evolution of the Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention. Using the example of Bamberg with its heterogeneous landscape of actors, the paper will demonstrate how protection and management are organised towards an intact World Heritage site, which serves as a source of education and identity and operates as a motor for sustainable, high-quality urban development. Special attention will be paid to the historic market gardens and their role in climate mitigation. The close connection of World Heritage and intangible cultural heritage in Bamberg is reflected in the Smart City initiative that is generously funded by the federal government. The initiative focusses on the creation of a digital twin enriched with real-time data. It can be used across sectors as a digital guidance system, to simulate and illustrate planning applications and their effects and to increase transparency within the heritage site.
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15:10 - 15:30Integral management of the UNESCO World Heritage City – Vilnius caseGediminas RutkauskasAfter the inscription of Vilnius historic city centre on the UNESCO WHL, an international team of experts developed the Strategy for WH site management. Its major conclusions were: 1. Then management of the city’s historic centre must be based on an equilibrium between urban conservation and development, with adequate support from the Ministry of Culture and the Municipality 2. Efficiency of WH site management must be ensured by an independent institution (NGO) that would integrate multiple public and private interests into the WH site’s management plans. Since its foundation in 1998, the Vilnius Old Town Renewal Agency (Vilnius OTRA) became involved in a wide range of activities. It started from prioritising restoration and physical upgrade of historic buildings, rising awareness among the young, consultations with the citizens, and engagement of property owners. Improvements in site management and professional perception gradually shifted the priorities towards International/EU cooperation development and fostering open public debates on safeguarding and upgrading historic environment. First attempts at developing means for WH tourism, and sharing and debating it with EU WH sites and nearby WH towns, were made in cooperation with the UNESCO WH Centre. Today Vilnius is an active member of World Heritage Cities’ Organisation, and the Vilnius OTRA targets the development of a regional WH information, research, and communication network as it creates new means to attract and stimulate youth and historic property owners’ interest in heritage preservation and maintenance.
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15:30 - 15:50“Much is expected of those to whom much has been given“ – addressing the three key challenges of the World Heritage status, illustrated with the example of three World Heritage cities in SlovakiaĽubica Pinčíková, Anna TuhárskaAs the whole world celebrates 50 years of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention this year, Slovakia looks forward to the 30th anniversary of the inscription of the first Slovak sites on the UNESCO World Heritage List next year. Several decades is a sufficiently long time to assess the impact of their inscription objectively. The effects of being included into this prestigious but also demanding body can be seen particularly well in the case of urban sites. This is why the Slovak contribution focuses more closely on three of them: Banská Štiavnica, Spišské Podhradie, and Bardejov. The Bible (Lk:12–48) teaches us that “much is expected of those to whom much has been given”. This is the perspective used to examine how the three cities have dealt with expectations and responsibilities ensuing from their World Heritage status, and in particular the opportunities and impacts that it provides in three crucial areas – tourism and visitor management, adequate conservation of heritage values, and involvement of local communities.
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15:50 - 17:00Discussion summarizing sessions 1 and 2
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17:00 - 18:00Cocktail (ICC patio)