part 1 - Iccrom

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Assessing the cultural significance of world heritage cities: Zanzibar as a case study Yvonne Vroomen, 1 Dave ten Hoope, 1 Bastiaan Moor, 1 Ana Pereira Roders, 2 Loes Veldpaus·3 & Bernard Colenbrander 4 Abstract This paper focuses on the World Heritage property ‘the Stone Town of Zanzibar’, located on the island Zanzibar, in the United Republic of Tanzania. The Stone Town is a case study that is part of a larger research program called: ‘Outstanding Universal Value, World Heritage cities and Sustainability: Surveying the relationship between the Outstanding Universal Value assessment practices and the sustainable development of World Heritage cities’ lead by the Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands; and UNESCO World Heritage Centre, France. The aim of the research is to help stakeholders involved in policy, management, and development of the Stone Town determine the adequacy of their current strategies towards sustainable development of the Stone Town, without damaging its Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) as defined by the World Heritage Centre. By assessing the OUV as stated in the official documents as well as the authenticity and integrity of the attributes representing the OUV apparent in the core zone, a comparison can be made. The policy documents (the Decision Text, Recommendation File and the Nomination File) will be assessed by means of revealing the dimensions of the cultural significance of the Stone Town in terms of cultural values. To complement this, the cultural values represented by the attributes of the Stone Town as well as its authenticity and integrity will be surveyed. This leads to a better insight into the (in-) consistencies between the ascribed cultural values represented in the policy documents on the one hand and the physical attributes on the other. Keywords: Stone Town, Zanzibar, World Heritage, UNESCO, sustainable development 1 Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands. 2 Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands. a.r.pereira@bwk.tue.nl 3 Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands. l.veldpaus@tue.nl 4 Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands. b.j.f.colenbrander@tue.nl Introduction This paper focuses on the World Heritage (WH) property ‘the Stone Town of Zanzibar’, located on the island Zanzibar, United Republic of Tanzania. The case study of the Stone Town is part of a larger research program called: ‘Outstanding Universal Value, World Heritage cities and Sustainability: Surveying the relationship between the Outstanding Universal Value assessment practices and the sustainable development of World Heritage cities’ lead by the Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands; and UNESCO World Heritage Centre, France (Pereira Roders and Van Oers, 2010). It is an innovative, collaborative and comparative research program that aims to make a significant contribution to both research and practice on World Heritage management and sustainable development (ibid.). v v v The main question of this case study is: how can the Stone Town develop sustainably, without damaging its Outstanding Universal Value (OUV)? This paper, however, will cover only part of this question. The research presented in this paper consists of a systematic analysis of the following policy documents containing information on the cultural significance of the Stone Town: the Decision Text (DT), the Recommendation File (RF) and the Nomination File (NF). This in order to find out in what way the original justification for inscription – as adopted by the World Heritage Committee (WHC) under criteria (ii) 1 , (iii) 2 and (vi) 3 (ICOMOS, 1999) is to be found echoed along the subsequent policy documents and in the physical attributes that make up the Stone Town. Vroomen, Y.; ten Hoope, D.; Moor, B.; Pereira Roders, A.; Veldpaus, L.·& B. Colenbrander. 2012. Assessing the cultural significance of World Heritage cities: Zanzibar as a case study. In Zancheti, S. M. & K. Similä, eds. Measuring heritage conservation performance, pp. 67-74. Rome, ICCROM. 67
MEASURING HERITAGE CONSERVATION PERFORMANCE 6th International Seminar on Urban Conservation This research continues the work of previous studies into the Stone Town regarding its OUV and its development. The first study was the UNCHS/ Habit report (LaNeir and McQuillan, 1983); its purpose was “to assist the government of Zanzibar which is deeply concerned about the potential loss of this valuable national patrimony to outline a development and conservation strategy for the Stone Town and to determine the magnitude of the effort required” (ibid., p. 1). This report included a record of the current situation of the Stone Town as well as recommendations for the future management and conservation of the Stone Town. In 1992 the First International Conference on the History & Culture of Zanzibar was held. The major focus of this conference was the history and conservation of Zanzibar Town. A publication of proceedings (Sheriff, 1995) and the preceding conference raised the awareness of the condition, and subsequently, the conservation of the heritage that is known as the Stone Town. This led to the 1996 Aga Khan Trust for Culture publication (Aga Khan Trust, 1996) containing the conservation Master Plan for Stone Town, conducted between 1992-1994. In 1999, based on the latter publication, the Application File for the inclusion on the World Heritage List (WHL) was made (URT, 2010). After inscription in 2000 the Aga Khan Trust for Culture published a report that includes “an explanation of how to design new buildings in compliance with the law, an analysis of traditional stone structures and common causes of failure, detailed descriptions of traditional building technologies and up-to-date conservation techniques, and advice on how to plan and execute repairs to traditional buildings” (Steel and Battle, 2001). Recently there has been a mission to Stone Town of Zanzibar (May 2008) from both UNESCO and ICOMOS. The report shows the discrepancies between interpretation and presentation of the criteria of OUV. Other threats mentioned are: the current management, which endangers the OUV of the attributes; and physical disturbances such as traffic congestion, telecom masts, waste management, damage from rainwater, etc. (Bakker and Elondou, 2008). 1. Aim and problem definition The aim of this research is to help stakeholders involved in policy, management, and development of the Stone Town determine the adequacy of their current strategies towards the sustainable development of the Stone Town, without damaging its Outstanding Universal Value as defined by the World Heritage Centre. The Stone Town of Zanzibar, United Republic of Tanzania, has the broadest level of cultural significance as it was considered to be of Outstanding Universal Value to all of mankind when listed as WH in 2000, under criteria (ii), (iii) and (vi). According to the WHC, Stone Town “is an outstanding material manifestation of cultural fusion and harmonization” (UNESCO, 2000). Moreover, “for many centuries there was intense sea bourne trading activity between Asia and Africa, and this is illustrated in an exceptional manner by the architecture and urban structure of the Stone Town” (ibid.). Lastly, “Zanzibar has great symbolic importance in the suppression of slavery, since it was one of the main slavetrading ports in East Africa and also the base from which its opponents such as David Livingstone conducted their campaign” (ibid.). Due to the inscription of the Stone Town in UNESCO’s WHL, the State Party (SP) has agreed that “legislative and regulatory measures at national and local levels should assure the survival of the property and its protection against development and change that might negatively impact the outstanding universal value, or the integrity and/ or authenticity of the property” (UNESCO, 2008). In other words: international inscription comes with local responsibilities. These responsibilities could conflict with the fact that just like other World Heritage (WH) cities, the Stone Town continues to function as a living settlement. These urban settlements need to evolve and meet the needs of their citizens, preferably in a sustainable way. Evolving requires transformation and development. Although many development projects are labelled today as ‘sustainable’, there is a substantial risk that these developments have an adverse impact on the cultural significance of WH cities. On the other hand, there is also the risk that the quality of OUV assessment practices influences the sustainable development of an urban settlement. Ever since the inscription of the Stone Town on the WHL, pursuit of development has resulted in conflicting interests that endanger the OUV of the property. These issues, though, were already apparent before the inscription (Bakker and Elondou, 2008, p. 15). At the time of inscription on the WHL, developmental pressures were mentioned, including environmental pressures — visitors/tourists pressures; as well as natural disaster preparedness and the number of inhabitants within the property and buffer zone. During the mission to Stone Town in 2008 of Karel A. Bakker (ICOMOS) and L. Vroomen, Y.; ten Hoope, D.; Moor, B.; Pereira Roders, A.; Veldpaus, L.·& B. Colenbrander. 2012. Assessing the cultural significance of World Heritage cities: Zanzibar as a case study. In Zancheti, S. M. & K. Similä, eds. Measuring heritage conservation performance, pp. 67-74. Rome, ICCROM. 68
Page 2 and 3:
Silvio Mendes Zancheti Katriina Sim
Page 4 and 5:
6 th International Seminar on Urban
Page 6 and 7:
Contents Foreword..................
Page 8 and 9:
Monitoring of the state of conserva
Page 10 and 11:
Measuring Heritage Conservation Per
Page 12 and 13:
Assessing the performance of conser
Page 14 and 15:
MEASURING HERITAGE CONSERVATION PER
Page 16 and 17:
Page 18 and 19:
Page 20 and 21:
Page 22 and 23:
Page 24 and 25:
Page 26 and 27:
Conserving and identifying heritage
Page 28 and 29: MEASURING HERITAGE CONSERVATION PER
Page 44 and 45: The Complexity of Historic Garden L
Page 64 and 65: How to register memory? Documentati
Page 70 and 71: Conservation of urban architectural
Page 86 and 87: Assessing the cultural significance
Page 100: MEASURING HERITAGE CONSERVATION PER
show all

part 1 - Iccrom

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?