part 1 - Iccrom

MEASURING HERITAGE CONSERVATION PERFORMANCE
6th International Seminar on Urban Conservation
gathered from interviews with people who have
been linked to the Saint Peter of the Clerics Courtyard
for many years; people who have lived,
worked or frequented the place and noted how it
has changed over time. More than just the length of
time spent in the courtyard, there is the feeling of
belonging to the place that has, in fact, turned them
into ‘mistresses of the house’, or the ‘hosts of the
courtyard’. The record of active effects has led to an
oral memory database having been compiled for the
site, something that will be of extreme importance
for future research on the courtyard.
1.10. The community’s participation
In parallel with the morphological and historical
research, three educational and decision-making
workshops were held in which the community and
government authorities took part. It could be seen,
based on the contact with the owners and tenants
of Saint Peter of the Clerics Courtyard properties,
that the best remembered aspect of its history for
them was that of its bohemian years, which began
in the 1960s. Themes that sprang out from the
research undertaken included religious occasions,
the black presence, vestiges of Dutch urbanism, the
Portuguese occupation and the artistic wealth of the
Baroque, which were not sufficiently known by the
community, who were surprised by the relevance of
the values found in the place where they live.
1.11. The towns of Água Branca, Delmiro
Gouveia and Olho d’Água do Casado - Alagoas
The third experience we have had and the one
which guided the construction of the methodology
presented here was based on the project ‘Identifying
the Cultural Assets in the Towns of Água
Branca, Delmiro Gouveia and Olho d’Água do
Casado – Alagoas’. 10 The aim of this investigation
was to record the cultural assets to which tools for
their protection could be applied. We identified a set
of 29 assets that were fit for protection, and these
included isolated buildings, urban groupings and
cultural landscapes. Some of the assets identified
as having cultural value came to be institutionally
recognized as being part of cultural heritage of Alagoas,
such as the buildings with the internal and
external registry and the whole area of the complex
of the former hydroelectric plant of Angiquinho in
the municipality of Delmiro Gouveia. 11
Research in the towns of Água Branca, Delmiro
Gouveia and Olho d’Água do Casado was motivated
by the absence of studies on identifying cultural
assets in which there is interest in preservation
as well as by the lack of recommended safeguards
for the elements listed, given the prospect of change
in the economic and physical-territorial structures
of the region of the Lower São Francisco, which
would, undoubtedly, affect the existing heritage
assets.
Thus, a methodology was used that interrelated
historical and documentary research, identification
of assets and the reading of the urban morphology.
The historical method was indispensable
for identifying and preserving the memory of the
cultural asset, in that being able to identify it was
made possible based on recognizing the dimensions
that defined and characterized it in times past and
present.
1.12. Historical and documentary research
Thus, the manuscript, bibliographic and iconographic
documentation, alongside the oral sources,
constituted the material that was fundamental to
recomposing the identity, memory and physical
transformation suffered by the place in its historical,
morphological and aesthetic dimensions. Using
these sources, the themes that supported the interpretation
and construction of the historical narrative
were defined.
Within the procedures necessary for interpretation,
the following steps were performed: preliminary
knowledge of the towns by means of the reading of
secondary sources; construction of indices; and visits
to the registries and archives, including virtual
ones, after having consulted and recorded bibliographic
and iconographic sources. The first sources
were recorded on 29 reading cards, including rare
works, and the second sources consisted of maps,
plans and about 1,406 photographs. After listing the
sources, we proceeded to organize the documents,
checking for consistency, identifying key themes
and the direction that interpretation was taking.
After concluding the historical research, we moved
on to surveying the information in situ.
1.13. Identifying the assets and
reading the urban layout
The identification of in situ assets consisted of:
exploratory, systematic and confirmatory surveys,
and also of compiling supplementary material.
Each stage of the survey had different and complementary
objectives, namely:
Exploratory survey: This was guided by suggestions
from experts with knowledge and experience
of the region and its history, and direct observation
Ribeiro, C.; Lira, F.; Piccolo, R. & V. Pontual. 2012. Conserving and identifying heritage: A methodological contribution. In Zancheti,
S. M. & K. Similä, eds. Measuring heritage conservation performance, pp. 15-25. Rome, ICCROM.
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