Several papers have come out, presenting work undertaken as part of the projects SHUC and PICH. Find abstracts and links here!
Heritage as a Vehicle for Development: The Case of Bigg Market, Newcastle upon Tyne
Loes Veldpaus & John Pendlebury
In this paper we examine the way conservation-planning has changed since the global economic crisis in Newcastle upon Tyne (UK), where austerity is still an all-consuming issue. Focusing upon a recent project around the Bigg Market, a historic public space, we map the new ‘conservation-planning assemblage’ where ‘other-than-public’ forms of management have taken hold. We identify impacts of austerity, deregulation and a smaller state ideology, and show how the agency of heritage assets and narratives in urban context is focussed on economic performance and competitiveness. Within the conservation-planning assemblage, roles and responsibilities have changed, and we reflect on the impact this has on conservation policy and practice.
KEYWORDS: Urban governance, heritage, conservation-planning, austerity, business improvement district, Newcastle upon Tyne
Placing Heritage in Entrepreneurial Urbanism: Planning, Conservation and Crisis in Ireland
Mark Scott , Arthur Parkinson, Declan Redmond & Richard Waldron
Ireland is beginning to emerge from an extended period of austerity following the global economic collapse of 2008. In this time, private sector investment in historic urban cores all but halted, and state funding for heritage was dramatically cut. However, both the state and civil society have placed a new emphasis on the potential of built heritage to act as a driver of economic recovery, reflected in both local and national policies and strategies relating to the conservation and regeneration of historic urban cores. Through a discourse analysis of local documentary material, and of semi-structured interviews with a range of key factors involved in the management of two historic urban cores in Ireland (Limerick and Waterford), the paper explores how conservation policy has been fashioned to suit its deployment as an instrument of local and national economic recovery within the context of entrenched entrepreneurial urbanism, and how local stakeholders have responded. The paper concludes on the implications for both conservation policy—specifically tensions between traditional conservation approaches and more flexible instruments utilised in heritage-led regeneration.
Keywords: Entrepreneurial urbanism, heritage, conservation, Ireland
Managing Urban Heritage – A Case Study of the Warehouses in Kjøpmannsgata, Trondheim, Norway
Strategies to densify urban fabric for both environmental and market purposes, place built heritage under increasing pressure. Over the last decade, a shift can be noted in the discourse on built heritage in Norway, where the requirements for ‘dynamic management’ that recognises these pressures is emphasised. There is also an increasing awareness of the connection between cultural heritage and sense of place. This paper examines the row of wooden warehouses in the historic core of Trondheim, how cultural heritage values are interpreted by different actors. The paper concludes that despite unanimous agreement about the need to preserve the warehouses, reasoning and solutions vary depending on differences and positions in the cultural heritage discourse.
KEYWORDS: Urban planning and conservation, place identity, social construction of heritage
After the Crash: the conservation-planning assemblage in an era of austerity
John Pendlebury , Mark Scott , Loes Veldpaus , Wout van der Toorn Vrijthoff & Declan Redmond
This paper focuses upon the practice of conservation applied through the planning systems of three European countries, Ireland, the Netherlands and England, here termed conservation-planning. The values and validated practice of conservation-planning are considered in terms of the concept of Authorised Heritage Discourses (AHDs) that are internationally-shaped but nationally articulated in each country, and by a distinct conservation-planning social entity that may be described as an ‘assemblage’. The post-2008 period has seen over-arching economic similarities in economic and political forces affecting conservation-planning practice in each country. In each case public-sector austerity measures have been accompanied by ideological re-positionings over the role of the state and a greater emphasis upon ‘selling the historic city’ has been accompanied by a declining public-sector capacity to manage change within the frame of traditionally established AHDs. The partial withdrawal of the state has in each case resulted in adjustments in the construction of the assemblage and thus in the ‘ownership’ of the AHDs with a greater involvement of the private sector in these processes. Despite similarities in conservation discourse, shaped by an international AHD, differences exist between the countries considered, which we can better understand by reference to the conservation-planning assemblage in each country.
KEYWORDS: AHD, neo-liberal, historic urban core, Netherlands, Ireland, England
Planning & Heritage 