Joint exploration of the intangible value and situatedness of Évora

Description

The presentation explored the situatedness of Évora’s site-specific characteristics by a presentation that invited participation through a workshop taking place in a carefully selected public place in the historic town. The workshop explored how the UNESCO heritage site is valued differently by the people attending the conference by orchestrating them to subjectively registrate and interact with the place. The workshop will work as an intervention, which is a planning method that strives to move the decision-making into the public space (Oswalt et al 2013).

The workshop was inspired by research conducted in three different heritage sites in Denmark: On an old fishing harbour, in a former meatpacking district and in a former freight rail area. The research studies are conducted by the authors and they have explored a heritage management method that balances the everyday life, a top-down and bottom-up decision-making, an anthropological slow living approach along with an investigation of how heritage has different meanings for different people.

Professor Laurajane Smith states that physical heritage is intangible since it is given value by the people living in it, using it or experiencing it (Smith 2006). In the matter of architectural management, the journalist Jane Jacobs is one of the first to advocate a more democratic approach to the built environment (Jacobs 1992). These theoretical views outline the importance of local understanding and citizens involvement when dealing with the physical environment. This is interlinked with an understanding of the built environment as being more than its physical performance.

The workshop asked the question: Can an inclusive approach work as a democratic heritage management method? Furthermore, the workshop explored the site-specific characteristics, of physical interventions as a means to include, and of the intangible nature of the seemingly physical heritage.

Period	10 May 2023 → 12 May 2023
Held at	ELIA – European League of Institutes of the Arts , Netherlands
Degree of Recognition	International