C ONSERVATION AND SUSTAINABILITY IN

HISTORIC CITIES
Presented by: Salma Mohammad Abouldahab Presented to:

Written by: Dennis Rodwell

Prof.Dr. Sami Shaker

C ONTENTS :
Introduction vii Acknowledgements viii Definitions: Conservation and Sustainability ..ix

1 Conservation: Background .....1 2 Urban Planning Context .....................23 3 Sustainability: Background .47 4 Conservation: International Initiatives and Directions ..64 5 Conservation: United Kingdom Position and Directions 86 6 Sustainable Cities and Urban Initiatives ..111 7 Managing World Heritage Cities: United Kingdom ..133 8 Managing Historic Cities: the Bottom-Up Approach ....161 9 The Coincidence between Conservation and Sustainability183 10 The Challenge and the Opportunity .204

Sources 217 Bibliography .243 List of Figures ..251 Index 255

I NTRODUCTION :
Aims of the book:

Identify weaknesses in current practice in urban conservation;

Set out the relationship between successful architectural conservation and agendas of sustainability and cultural identity;

Extend the achievement of the goals of sustainability in the context of historic cities; and
Highlight the opportunities for conservation and sustainability to work in a partnership of profound strength and mutual achievement.

C ONSERVATION :

C ONSERVATION :

Over a period of several centuries, architectural conservation has developed from an elitist interest in key monuments of major stylistic periods to a broad discipline that recognizes values in a spectrum of building types and epochs, in the range of scales from the rural vernacular to the

historic city, and attaches importance to geocultural diversity.

C ONSERVATION :
Turning points:
Nineteenth century Anti restoration movement, in England, this movement inspired the foundation of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) by William Morris, is often cited as the formal basis for architectural conservation. Second World War and its aftermath in Europe Emergence of campaigns to save individual historic buildings and whole cities after the destruction of the historic hearts and appearance of modern movement in architecture and planning European Architectural Heritage Year 1975 Led by the Council of Europe, European Architectural Heritage Year constituted a Europe-wide campaign of awareness-raising and action
St Albans Cathedral, England, was substantially remodelled in the name of restoration

Brussels, Belgium: the Grand-Place in 1971. The elimination of parked cars was one of many key projects of European Architectural Heritage Year

C ONSERVATION :
The language of architectural conservation:
Heritage
(UNESCO) defines heritage broadly and well: heritage is our legacy from the past, what we live with today, and what we pass on to future generations

Preservation
Restoration

means maintaining the fabric of a place in its existing state and retarding deterioration. means returning the existing fabric of a place to a known earlier state by removing accretions or by reassembling existing components without the introduction of new material. Eugene Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, defined restoration as follows: to restore a building is not to preserve it, to repair it, or to rebuild it: it is to reinstate it to a condition of completeness which may never have existed at any given point in time.

Conservation

means all the processes of looking after a place so as to retain its cultural significance.

Authenticity Is defined in an ICCROM (international center for conservation in Rome) publication (essentially in a European context) as: materially original or genuine as it was constructed and as it has aged and weathered in time.

C ONSERVATION :
Conservation charters
Common to all of the charters is their focus on the protection of selected buildings or groupings that are characterized as monuments whose origins relate to cultural expressions, Later charters expand the concept of values beyond the purely cultural into the social and the economic.

The contradiction between charters is in the design of new buildings in the surroundings of historic monuments and within historic areas.
The 1931 Athens Charter urges respect; the 1933 Charte dAthnes condemns the reproduction of historical styles; the 1964 Venice Charter insists that new structures should be distinct and contemporary; and the 1975 European Charter promotes the use of traditional materials. Only in the 1987 Washington Charter is the potential for contemporary elements to contribute to the enrichment of a historic area expressed that they be in harmony

C ONSERVATION :
Urban conservation: museological beginnings Marais quarter, Paris, France During the nineteenth century the Marais became an artisan quarter, and the former htels particuliers the town mansion houses of the rich were taken over and subdivided into workshops and apartments, their courtyards often built over to form warehouses The original plan for the secteur sauvegard was a highly interventionist one aimed at the restoration of the entire quarter to its former glory: 1-The restoration of all of the historic buildings externally and Internally. 2-The opening up of the spaces between buildings and within courtyards that had been built over. 3-And the recreation of the gardens.
Hotel le Rebours: the courtyard.

C ONSERVATION :
Urban conservation: museological beginnings Marais quarter, Paris, France

Sites and Historic Monuments at the French Ministry of Cultural Affairs : the only solution for the revitalization of the 300 large residences in the Marais is to use them for embassies or head offices of large companies. Museums and government offices were also considered compatible uses

C ONSERVATION :
Urban conservation: museological beginnings

Ancient Reserve, Plovdiv, Bulgaria

The over-riding policy being to restore and apply cultural uses to them, uses that make them accessible to the public for higher education or as visitors but detach them from the everyday life of the majority of citizens There are only so many art galleries, museums, libraries, and institutes that any city can support. The Ancient Reserve has taken on the aspect of an open-air museum, with its associated complement of souvenir shops and stalls

Around half of the more than 200 monuments in the Ancient Reserve are underused, in poor condition or derelict; some are in ruins. Detaching this historic area from the everyday life of the modern city has seriously limited the options for using these monuments, and therefore the investment to restore them.

S USTAINABILITY :

S USTAINABILITY :
Sustainability: beginnings The starting points for concern are numerous. They include modern warfare; population growth; deforestation and desertification; loss of habitat, animal species and biodiversity; drought and famine; diminishing reserves of natural resources; toxic wastes and air pollution; industrial accidents; acid rain and ozone depletion; global warming and climate change; and health and global equity The changing focus and accumulating priorities may be summarized by characterizing the 1980s in general terms as the decade of energy audits, the 1990s of environmental assessments (including Environmental Impact Assessments), and the 2000s as the decade of sustainability plans (including Local Agenda 21s) in which the concepts of finite resources, life cycle, biodiversity, livability, health and safety, and social equity have increasingly come to the fore.

S USTAINABILITY :
The language of sustainability
Sustainable development Brundtland definition: Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs

Sustainable communities Are places where people want to live and work, now and in the future. They meet the diverse needs of existing and future residents, are sensitive to their environment, and contribute to the quality of life. They are safe and inclusive, well planned, built and run, and offer equality of opportunity and good services for all.
Sustainability Sir Bernard Feilden, namely, that sustainability is about prolonging the useful life of a building in order to contribute to a saving of energy, money and materials. This establishes a clear relationship with the finite resources of the natural world, and successfully embraces the three components of sustainability: environment, society and economy.

S USTAINABILITY :
Relevance to historic cities
If historic cities are considered in terms of their functionality within communities, the natural resources of materials and energy that have gone into their construction, and the financial means that have been invested in them often over several generations, then the relationship to the three core issues of sustainability becomes more evident. Approaches to historic cities: -Modern town planning (top down approach) : simply devising blanket solutions that are then imposed universally; seeking to rebuild or at least very substantially remould them to a particular set of preconceived notions that are time dated -Contradicting approaches (bottom up approach) : understanding how individual cities work within their communities, with the view to devising and implementing tailor-made strategies to suit their particular socio-economic and environmental circumstances and to take best advantage of their inherited investments in place and people, and give respect for, and continuity of, cultural identity and diversity.

S USTAINABILITY :
Urban conservation: strategic beginnings at the metropolitan scale London, England
Problem: 1-Increase in the population of the region 2-An accelerating increase in the number of mostly office-based service jobs and their concentration in the heart of the capital 3-A shortage of building land for housing close to the capital. Proposed solutions: A series of counter-magnets to the capital in the form of three new cities and the substantial expansion of six others, all of which were located a considerable distance from London itself, attracting employment and population away from it. BUT: The major components of this plan were dismantled one by one, and commuters to London now travel daily from distances greater than the farthest of the projected countermagnets.
Monocentric city

S USTAINABILITY :
Urban conservation: strategic beginnings at the metropolitan scale
Decentralization: Five new regional centers of population and employment were identified, and have been substantially successful in siphoning development pressures away from the city centre. Additionally, the protection of central Paris from the pressures of commercial redevelopment by the establishment in 1958 of the new business and administrative centre of La Defense.

Paris, France

Polycentric city

Distribute the pressures for development; to balance the movements of people to and from different parts of the city and its region thereby increasing the efficient use of the transport infrastructure; to create favorable environmental and economic conditions for the protection and conservation of the historic areas of the city; and to provide positive outlets for major new developments that do not conflict with the historic core and its buildings.

S USTAINABLE C ITIES AND U RBAN I NITIATIVES :

S USTAINABLE C ITIES AND U RBAN I NITIATIVES :

Sustainable cities
Is one in which its people and businesses continuously improve their natural, built and cultural environments at neighborhood and regional levels, whilst working in ways which always support the goal of global sustainable development

Key issues
Relationships to the use of land; the availability and quality of fresh water; the consumption of non-renewable raw material and energy resources; airborne pollution and its effects on health; the origination and disposal of waste; and the quality of urban environments

Characteristics
Compact, high density and mixed-use, proximity and accessibility.
daily travel is reduced; walking and cycling are prioritized; public transport is efficient and viable; energy consumption, the emission of pollutants, and the production of wastes are substantially lowered; and economy in the use of land is assisted by the need for less roads. Also, they are well connected to their localities and to each other by public transport

S USTAINABLE C ITIES AND U RBAN I NITIATIVES :

Goal of sustainable city
Self-sufficiency of the historical model without retreating into it, and at the same time embraces the global dimension of a hinterland that was previously largely local The reduction of its use of nonrenewable natural resources and production of wastes whilst simultaneously improving its livability For the architect-planner in historic cities, the point of departure is the established infrastructure and buildings: from a sustainability point of view, irrespective of their architectural and historic interest; and from a conservation perspective, as a major added reason for their retention and proper care. The sustainable city seeks to conserve and enhance what exists in the natural, built and cultural environments. It views the city as a dynamic and complex ecosystem, one in which a core objective is the achievement of a balanced and self-regulating socio economic and environmental organization based on functional, structural and social diversity.

S USTAINABLE C ITIES AND U RBAN I NITIATIVES :

Urban initiatives
Urban Villages explored the idea of creating mixed-use developments at a small, neighborhood scale, and has wider relevance to existing cities and their communities
The Prince of Wales wrote:I am hoping we can encourage the development of urban villages in order to reintroduce human scale, intimacy and a vibrant street life. These factors can help to restore to people their sense of belonging and pride in their own particular surroundings.
Rothenburg-ob-der-Tauber, Germany. One of the models for an urban village is the medieval market town, including for: its selfsufficiency for daily needs; its compactness and the proximity by foot of its many activities

The Urban Renaissance took a much broader view and explored key components of an over-arching framework for sustainable urban development. It sought to inspire a revival of confidence in cities and citizenship and to match this to increasing public awareness of the sustainability agenda and changes in society. As such, the report may have been better advised to place environmental responsibility and social well-being above urban design in its list of priorities. That citizens are more important to cities than design is attested by experience elsewhere.

S USTAINABLE C ITIES AND U RBAN I NITIATIVES :

Unfortunately

Much of the wisdom in the Urban Renaissance has been undermined by a lack of strategic planning at national level, and a failure to address the opportunities afforded by the enormous range and quantity of empty and underused property in English cities. Their environmental capital is one of the keys to unlocking the untapped potential of urban conservation to contribute to sustainable development.

M ANAGING W ORLD H ERITAGE C ITIES : U NITED K INGDOM

M ANAGING W ORLD H ERITAGE C ITIES : U NITED K INGDOM

In the context of cities that are on the World Heritage List, there is a lack of precision in the guidance. The international documentation sets down clear markers as to the range of issues and the appropriate responses. These are not comprehensive, but they represent a sound starting point.

The ICCROM Management Guidelines

the need to treat a historic centre in the context of the wider city; the need to adapt standardized planning techniques to suit local conditions, historic urban texture and scale, adopting a bottom-up rather than a top-down approach; the need to respect the intangible cultural traditions of a historic city; the importance of simple buildings and vernacular architecture in distinguishing a historic city from a group of monuments; the prevention of out-of-scale uses and buildings (including tall buildings); the importance of treating the existing historic fabric on equal terms with other factors in the general planning process; the principle that environmental capacity should be the determining factor in transport and traffic planning; the importance of securing beneficial use within the community through a mixture of residential, commercial, industrial and leisure activities the need to avoid both facadism and architectural pastiche.

T HE C OINCIDENCE BETWEEN C ONSERVATION AND S USTAINABILITY

T HE C OINCIDENCE BETWEEN C ONSERVATION AND S USTAINABILITY

Catchphrases

Think global, act local

Sustainability: recognizes that the historical equilibrium between humans and the natural environment has been disturbed at all levels, from the global to the local, that the recovery of balance is essential, and that the twin starting points are the international community as a whole and each individual in his or her community. Sustainability emphasizes the essential relationship between the specific characteristics of each natural environment and the human living patterns that inhabit or relate to them Conservation: The safeguarding of authenticity and integrity are prerequisites for the continuity of both the tangible and the intangible components of cultural diversity Historic cities are perceived not so much as static objects to be admired for their history and architecture, but as living spaces to be occupied by local communities as an essential part of the process of safeguarding those communities identity and sense of belonging.

T HE C OINCIDENCE BETWEEN C ONSERVATION AND S USTAINABILITY

Reduce, reuse, recycle
The 3 Rs of non-renewable resource and waste management form an essential part of the coincidence between conservation and sustainability. The sustainability argument reinforces the view that the historic environment should not be perceived in limited cultural terms only for its architectural and historic interest, but for its environmental capital, at all scales up to and including the historic city. It implies new development that is additive and complementary, and significantly increased emphasis on maintaining, reusing, adapting, and enhancing the existing built stock and infrastructure all within an overall framework that embraces the principles of the sustainable city and coordinated urban management.

The gaps
The absence of coherent national strategies, coordination at the urban scale, and interdisciplinary understanding and skills. They also manifest an absence of a regard towards historic buildings individually, and cities holistically that prioritizes minimum intervention and focuses on complementing them with additive development

T HE C OINCIDENCE BETWEEN C ONSERVATION AND S USTAINABILITY

Recycling building materials within the community Reusing buildings within the local community

Stonework salvaged from the abbey can be seen in a variety of structures in the locality.

Melrose Station, Scotland. The restoration focused on providing the building with new functions within that community. offering flexible commercial spaces that have served a variety of purposes including craft workshops, offices, medical consulting rooms, creche, furniture showroom, retail space, and restaurant

T HE C OINCIDENCE BETWEEN C ONSERVATION AND S USTAINABILITY

Stay close to the source
This catchphrase of sustainability is underscored by the concept of proximity, importantly for architectural conservation, of traditional building materials and craft skills to the localities in which they were employed historically and for which they are best suited today. Reduction in the need for travel and transport for everyday purposes, and the unnecessary use of non-renewable energy sources in the process, is a key beneficial consequence.

Top-down meeting bottom-up

Top-down solutions in urban planning seek to impose received ideas that often originate in the abstract on real life situations for which they are frequently ill-suited, they failed to provide the results that had been forecast, The ordering of cities according to separation of functions and programmes of slum clearance and community dispersal generated a series of land use, transport movement and social problems that were not manifest previously and which we have inherited.

T HE C OINCIDENCE BETWEEN C ONSERVATION AND S USTAINABILITY

Bottom-up solutions start from analysis and understanding of the identity of a historic city both in terms of the continuous evolution of its tangible heritage and of its human culture. They make specific demands on planning and building professionals to work with what exists and not to seek to impose incompatible received ideas and technical solutions, bottom-up solutions allow the buildings, the plot sizes, the street patterns and open spaces, together with the traditional patterns of use, movement and human interaction to determine the least interventionist approach to the environment. The conjunction between top-down and bottom-up in the over-arching process of sustainability is a matter of mutual understanding and skill sharing of empowering citizens and communities to act as environmental stakeholders.

T HE C HALLENGE AND THE O PPORTUNITY

T HE C HALLENGE AND THE O PPORTUNITY

The challenge:
The city is one of the greatest challenges of the twenty-first century. It is the starting point for a sustainable world. Pre-industrial cities offer models of sustainable urban development. The challenge is to recover the over-riding principle of balance in an industrialized world in the age of globalization. The physical and societal attributes of historic cities are inseparable. They embrace environmental issues, tangible and intangible cultural heritage, and equity both within and between generations. Recognising and acting upon the full range of values inherent in historic cities is a core component of the challenge. Some current issues: The concept of heritage and its role today Dynamic approach that is focused on processes that safeguard geocultural identity and secure its continuity Training and continuity of employment opportunities in traditional craft skills in locations where demand for their services is concentrated.

T HE C HALLENGE AND THE O PPORTUNITY

Functional, material and cultural resource
Establishing continuity of function, the principle of minimum intervention to fabric and community alike favors uses for buildings individually and historic areas collectively that relate as closely as possible to those for which those buildings and areas were constructed Historic buildings and areas represent a non-renewable capital resource of materials, energy, and financial investment as well as a cultural one The editor of the Architectural Review wrote 1970 : It is the mark of an immature culture a demonstration of a childish attitude to valuable and historic buildings to assume that if new accommodation is required . . . it can only be provided by demolishing . . . and rebuilding on the same site

Facadism
Is technically complex, financially expensive, and constitutes a form of architectural taxidermy that treats historic cities as theatrical stage sets. It symbolizes a failure to establish continuity of function

T HE C HALLENGE AND THE O PPORTUNITY

Contemporary architecture

Geocultural identity and sense of place are rudely interrupted when modern buildings are intolerant of their neighbours and confront them abrasively

T HE C HALLENGE AND THE O PPORTUNITY

The opportunity:
Civil society is enthused about heritage. It is extensively and progressively involved in the saving and restoration of individual buildings and building types.
to redefine conservation to make it relevant to sustainability; to reverse the anti-urban legacy and redefine the city to make it relevant to citizens as a place in which to live as well as to work, shop and play; to adopt a resource management approach in which material and cultural resource values act as mutually supportive partners; to progressively reorder existing, historic cities for a sustainable future, recognising and safeguarding all of the tangible and intangible cultural values that are associated with them; and to address the urban conservation challenge holistically and position conservation as a determining factor in sustainable development.

THANK YOU