Reconciling Nature and Culture in a Global Context? - Rainforest ...

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Sandra Pannellfrom the shopping and bustle of Hong Kong, or an opportunity to gamble in the many casinoswhich flank the city. Surrounded by high-rise buildings, non-descript concrete blocks, andflashy hotel complexes, the Historic Centre of Macau “provides a unique testimony to themeeting of aesthetic, cultural, architectural and technological influences from East and West”(UNESCO World Heritage Centre website 2005). In an acknowledgement of its strategicimportance in the development of international trade, the Historic Centre of Macau isidentified as a cultural heritage property of ‘outstanding universal value according to four ofthe Convention’s ten criteria. Inscribed as a location which favoured; (1) “an importantinterchange of human values” (criterion ii), (2) bears a unique testimony to the ‘earliest’ and‘longest-lasting’ encounter between China and a European colonial power, in this casePortugal (criterion iii), and (3) represents an outstanding example of architectural ensemblelinking the original Chinese port with the Portuguese city (criterion iv), the Historic Centre ofMacau is also recognised in terms of its “association with the exchange of a variety ofcultural, spiritual, scientific and technical influences between Western and Chinesecivilisations” (criterion vi) (ICOMOS 2005a: 61-62).The ICOMOS evaluation of the site reiterates the history of the development of the HistoricCentre of Macau presented in the original nomination document (ICOMOS 2005a).According to this document, the site of Macau was a fishing village long before the arrival ofthe Portuguese in 1557. The name of Macau derives from the Ma Kwok temple, built in thefourteenth century. This temple, together with the fifteenth century temple for the GoddessA-Ma, comprised two of the more prominent architectural forms that existed among the smallsettlements of seafaring merchants, fishermen and farmers, prior to the arrival of thePortuguese. The early Portuguese settlers, looking to establish Macau as a ‘bastion ofChristianity’, as well as a trading post, erected timber and clay houses in the Inner Harbourarea of Macau. While none of the original dwellings survive today, some of the Catholicchurches and chapels established in the early colonial period (the 1500s and 1600s) formpart of the Historic Centre of Macau. In the early seventeenth century the Portugueseconstructed a series of forts against other Western powers, notably the Dutch, who attackedMacau in 1622 (Boxer 1969: 111). One of the surviving forts from this period, the MountFortress (constructed in 1626), is enclosed within the central area of the historic settlement ofMacau. In the mid-seventeenth century, the settlement of Macau was divided into aPortuguese sector in the south and a Chinese enclave in the north. In 1849, Portugaldeclared Macau a ‘free port’, enhancing Macau’s role as a trading base and attracting foreigncompanies to the enclave. In the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the CatholicChurch built a number of new churches and restored some of the earlier ones. It wastowards the end of the nineteenth century that Macau, unable to compete with Hong Kong asthe region’s finance and trade centre, became a popular recreation destination for foreigners.Some of the buildings constructed at this time, such as the Dom Pedro V Theatre, theMilitary Club, and the Vela Vista Hotel, are listed as part of the architectural ensemble ofhistoric Macau. Apparently, during this time the Chinese built a number of temples (alsoincluded within the World Heritage area) and started the process of land reclamation. In1974, Macau was established as a ‘Chinese territory’ under Portuguese administration, andlater in 1999, it became a ‘Special Administrative Region’ (SAR) under Chinese Sovereignty(ICOMOS 2005a).The World Heritage property consists of two separate ‘core zones’, with buffer zonessurrounding each of these areas (Map 4). The boundaries of these buffer zones areidentified as coinciding with the early nineteenth century limits of the territory of Macau.While these ‘buffer zones’ may play an important role in separating the Historic Centre ofMacau from encroaching development, they are not included within the boundaries of thelisted World Heritage property. A series of architectural forms and urban spaces, includingsquares, churches, chapels, temples, a fort, a lighthouse, gardens, cemetery, ruins, oldwalls, colonial government buildings and residences comprise the World Heritage focus ofthe two core zones (Figure 15). The heritage buildings within these zones, including three52
Reconciling Nature and Culture in a Global Context?Lessons from the World Heritage Listhistoric Chinese temples, are either the property of the SAR Government or, in the case ofthe St Josephs complex, the Dom Pedro V Theatre, and the Holy House of Mercy Building,are owned by the Catholic Church and a private institution. Day-to-day management of theHistoric Centre is the responsibility of the newly formed Heritage Environment ManagementCouncil. Members of this council include both government representatives, managementboards for each of the individual heritage properties and community associations. Theinvolvement of these community associations points to the varied organisations and differentsectors of the population with an interest in the Historic Centre. For instance, the bufferzones are home to some 36,000 people, and these areas combine both commercial andresidential use (Figure 16). These zones also contain an array of significant architecturalforms. The buildings include traditional Chinese pawnshops, small Chinese shrines,traditional shop-houses, military structures, some churches and chapels, plus the oldcommercial district and other public spaces (ICOMOS 2005a). On the other hand few, if any,residents inhabit the 25 buildings and squares identified as the key architectural heritage ofthe core zones. While not places of permanent residence, some of the churches andtemples are still used for religious purposes. Other heritage buildings operate as venues forpublic events, house various government departments and private foundations, or functionas a public amenity (e.g. as a library or a museum), visited by locals and tourists, alike. AsEvans points out, “conservation, property gentrification […] and corporate investment inarchitectural heritage has ensured that there are very few living communities in the touristiccentres of Venice, Florence, or fashionable museum quarters of London, Paris and Madrid”(2005: 39). Unlike the ‘sterilised’ cultural heritage areas that Evans refers to, the HistoricCentre of Macau largely avoids this effect of heritage conservation and tourism by the factthat interspersed amongst the largely empty architectural legacy of the East-West encounteris a thriving residential and commercial Macanese community.While local people and protected places intermingle in the core zones, it is also the case,however, that these two zones are dominated by overtly Portuguese architectural forms,while the buffer zones are predominantly comprised of readily identifiable ‘Chinese’structures. As this suggests, Portuguese architectural forms dominate and are prioritised inthe World Heritage listed historic precinct. This emphasis upon Portuguese heritage is alsoevident in the history of the site presented in the nomination document and promoted in theofficial World Heritage brochure for the site. For all the talk in the nomination and listingdocuments of the ‘meeting’ of cultures, long-standing cultural ‘encounters’, the ‘interchange’of values and the ‘exchange’ of influences, the Historic Centre of Macau also reflects theseparation and segregation of these two cultures.In many respects this ‘dual culture’ (Macau Government Tourist Office 2005: 2) is evident inthe nature of visitations to the identified architectural focal points of the World Heritageproperty. Based on my own experience as a visitor (and also researcher) to the area duringthe staging of the 4 th East Asia Games in Macau, it was apparent that domestic Chinesevisitation is focused upon the A-Ma Temple in the south-west section of the centre, and to alesser extent upon the other ‘Chinese’ 54 temples within the historic precinct, whileinternational Western visitors tended to congregate around the many Catholic churches andchapels dating from the period of Portuguese colonialism. Both groups seem to convergeupon the Ruins of St Paul’s and the nearby Senado Square. This is not so surprising giventhat Senado Square is the shopping centre of Macau, while the Ruins of St Paul’s have awidely-recognised iconic value. Referred to as the ‘Acropolis of Macau’ and as an ‘altar tothe city’ in the official four-page World Heritage brochure for the site (Macau GovernmentTourist Office 2005: 3), government tourist promotions regularly employ the image of the54 While the official broadsheet visitor brochure produced by Macau Government Tourist Officegenerically identifies the temples in the Historic Centre of Macau as 'Chinese', this label belies therange of religious traditions and beliefs, including Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism and local folkcults, associated with these temples and shrines.53
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