welcome to newcastle upon tyne ‘planning and world heritage’

Welcome to Newcastle upon TyneWelcome to Newcastle upon Tyne

‘‘Planning and World Heritage’Planning and World Heritage’

Planning & World Heritage Event: Local Authority World Heritage Forum

(LAWHF), English Heritage and ICOMOS-UK

What is World Heritage?

Susan Denyer, Secretary ICOMOS-UK

Planning and World Heritage, 24 February & 2 March 2010


World Heritage Convention 1972for the protection of World’s Cultural & Natural Heritage

• Set up to recognise sites of ‘outstanding universal value’ which:– Are part of the ‘world heritage of mankind as a

whole’

– Deserve ‘protection & transmission to future generations’

– World Heritage sites are important for whole of humanity


• Most successful international convention ever – in numerical terms:

• 890 World Heritage Sites in 141 countries• 689 cultural sites• 176 natural sites• 25 mixed sites (both natural and cultural values)

• More countries signed and ratified than for any other international convention – over 180




• World Heritage Convention is ratified by States Parties (Governments)

• Who agree to conserve properties on their territories that are seen to be of Outstanding Universal Value (OUV)

• And thus contribute towards protecting the shared heritage of humanity


• Properties to be considered for World Heritage status are nominated by States Parties

• Evaluated by the Advisory Bodies:• ICOMOS for cultural properties• IUCN for natural properties

• Decision on inscription made by the World Heritage Committee– Representatives of 21 countries who serve for

around four years


UNESCO WH Committee

• Sites are inscribed on the list by UNESCO WH Committee, if they are considered to:

• Have Outstanding Universal Value

• Meet certain criteria

• Conditions of authenticity and integrity

• Have adequate protection and management



OUV

• Outstanding Universal Value (OUV)– underpins the whole World Heritage process:

• It is what defines and sets apart the Word Heritage Convention– from other heritage conventions

• It allows humankind to value cultural and natural heritage

• in such a way that it transcends and crosses international boundaries


OUV

2008 Operational Guidelines:

OUV means cultural and/or natural significance which is so exceptional

as to transcend national boundaries

and to be of common importance for present and future generations of all humanity.


OUV

2005 UNESCO Special Expert Meeting in Kazan on Concept of OUV

• Definition and application of OUV are made by people and will be subject to evolution over time….


• The process of nomination is taking place in the context of continually broadening definition of cultural heritage

• The idea of establishing fixed reference points over time is not necessarily possible or even desirable

• Re-shaping cultural heritage is taking place in every country – and is linked directly or indirectly to the application of the World Heritage Convention


OUV

• However, what is fixed is the assessment of value and application of criteria at the time of inscription – what at that moment the Committee

considered was a justification of OUV

• OUV defines the thinking at the time of inscription


Statement of OUV (SoOUV)

• Today when World Heritage Committee agrees to inscribe a property on the list,

• Statement of OUV is agreed that:

• Encapsulates why the property is considered to be of OUV– How it satisfies criteria, authenticity, integrity,

protection and management



• SoOUV overarches the whole subsequent management and conservation of the property

• Management focused on sustaining OUV for which it was inscribed


SoOUV

Is reference point for:• Monitoring• Periodic Reporting• Potential reactive monitoring (SOC)• Possible Danger listing• Deletion



SoOUV

SoOUV

• Sets out the attributes that together add up ‘OUV’

• Not just individual attributes

• But the totality of attributes that together give the property OUV– Why the property merits inscription on the WH

list


SoOUV

• For many properties that were inscribed in the 1980s and 1990s– there is no SoOUV– and in some cases no justification for the

criteria

• As SoOUV underpins the monitoring process– Need to fill the gaps


SoOUVOp Guidelines:• If a SoOUV is not available or incomplete

– It will be necessary in the first periodic report for the State Party to propose such a statement

• Such SoOUV will be examined by the Advisory Body(ies) concerned – and transmitted to the World Heritage Committee for

approval, if appropriate

SoOUV

• English Heritage, Historic Scotland and Cadw are now working with WHSs

• To draft SoOUVs for all WHSs without them– for consideration by the WH Committee

• after evaluation by the ABs

– ICOMOS-UK is helping with this process


OUV: recap

• OUV is about Why the property is of global significance

• Nomination Dossier submitted by the State Party presents the case for OUV

• Advisory Bodies evaluate whether they consider property has OUV and make recommendations

• World Heritage Committee agrees on OUV for properties that it recommends for inscription


OUV

• OUV is thus fixed at time of inscription

• Can only be altered or amended by new Nomination

• And is thus non-negotiable



The WH Convention is a site based convention

• It is properties that are inscribed on the List, not people or ideas – OUV may be linked to ideas

– such as influence, defining moments in history, beliefs, scarcity, rarity, beauty, diversity, etc

• Ultimately what is inscribed is the property– a collection of physical attributes that carry OUV

• physical or spatial entities • associated processes: traditional land use, social

rituals, spiritual beliefs, etc


Sustaining OUV

Inscription brings a commitment to sustain OUV over time

• Cannot manage OUV directly• Can manage the attributes that convey OUV

Value-based management:• Is management of attributes that convey OUV

Sustaining OUV

SP devolves that responsibility to Local Authorities,– with advice from Agencies (EH/HS/Cadw)– With involvement of:

• DCMS, CLG, DEFRA

• Devolved administrations, Other government departments and agencies

• UK National Commission for UNESCO

• ICOMOS-UK

• IUCN UK

• All Party Parliamentary World Heritage Group (APPWHG)

• Local Authority World Heritage Forum (LAWHF)


Sustaining OUV

• In evaluating proposals for change in the WHS• It is essential that adequate impact

assessments are carried out to demonstrate impact on OUV – Through assessing impact on the attributes

that convey OUV

• Not everything in a WHS contributes to OUV– What needs protecting are the attributes

that convey OUV


Attributes

• May be buildings, spatial plans, views, coherence of built fabric, agricultural landscape, mining remains,

• The attributes have importance as a group – they must be treated as a whole

• Integrity is about the property encompassing all the necessary attributes within its boundaries

• Authenticity is about the ability of the attributes to convey OUV truthfully


Setting

• Attributes need to be able to convey their OUV

• WHSs must as a whole convey their OUV

• In order to achieve this, the setting of WHSs needs to be protected in the way it allows understanding of OUV – Immediate setting may be protected by a

Buffer Zone or other designations

– Wider setting may be protected by other mechanisms


Key Messages 1

• OUV is defined at the time of inscription• It is conveyed by a specific collection of

attributes• Not everything in the WHS is an attribute

– need to understand what is

• Setting may contribute to understanding and perception of OUV


Key Messages 2

• WHSs are single properties with a coherence

• Ensemble of attributes that as a whole convey OUV

• Must be managed so as to sustain OUV• Through managing attributes

• Impact assessments need to– Recognise WHS as single properties – Consider impact specifically on

attributes of OUV


City of Bath


City of Bath: OUV• The Roman remains, marked the beginning of Bath's

history as a spa town

• The Georgian city reflects the ambitions of John Wood Senior, Ralph Allen and Richard 'Beau' Nash

• to make Bath into one of the most beautiful cities in Europe– with architecture and landscape combined harmoniously

• The Neo-classical style of the public buildings harmonises with the grandiose proportions of the monumental ensembles– and collectively reflects the ambitions, particularly social, of the

spa city in the 18th century.Planning and World Heritage, 24

February & 2 March 2010

City of Bath: OUV

• The individual Georgian buildings reflect the profound influence of Palladio,– and their collective scale, style, and the organisation of the

spaces between buildings

– epitomises the success of architects • in transposing Palladio's ideas to the scale of a

complete city, situated in a hollow in the hills and built to a Picturesque landscape aestheticism

– creating a strong garden city feel, more akin to the 19th century garden cities than the 17th century Renaissance cities


City of Bath: Attributes

• Roman Remains• Overlaid with planned town: Bath's grandiose Neo-

classical Palladian crescents, terraces, and squares spread out over the surrounding hills and set in its green valley – picturesque views and forms

• Harmonious relationship – integration of landscape and town

• Bath's urban and landscape spaces are created by the buildings that enclose them, – providing a series of interlinked spaces that flow organically, – and that visually (and at times physically) draw in the green

surrounding countryside to create a distinctive garden city feel


Bath Western Riverside


Bath Western Riverside

• Insert photo of Notre Dame scheme


Cornwall & West Devon Mining Landscape


Cornwall & West Devon Mining Landscape OUV

• Much of the landscape of Cornwall and West Devon was transformed in the 18th and early 19th centuries– as a result of the rapid growth of pioneering copper and tin

mining.

• Its deep underground mines, engine houses, foundries, new towns, smallholdings, ports and harbours, ancillary industries, great houses and estates, and mineralogical sites

• together reflect prolific innovation– that drove this crucible of industrial development which in the

early 19th century produced two thirds of the world’s supply of copper


Cornwall & West Devon Mining Landscape OUV

• Between 1700 and 1814, the industrialisation of non-ferrous mining in Cornwall and West Devon transformed the landscape and the structure of society– and contributed substantially to the development

of an industrialised economy in Britain and around the world

• The mines of Cornwall and West Devon, through the development and use of steam technology, became proponents of industrialised mining processes that had a profound effect on mining around the world.


Cornwall & West Devon Mining Landscape: Attributes

• Aspects of the cultural landscape that reflect the way mining transformed society and its settlement patterns

• Not only mines, factories and physical remains of active mining processes

• Also new and modified forms of settlement; new towns, small holdings, grand buildings to display wealth, transport, ports,

• Relationship between factories and housing


Cornwall & West Devon Mining Landscape: Hayle Harbour


• The Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape was inscribed as a cultural landscape- not an ensemble of archaeological sites, and thus it is the overall landscape pattern and coherence that are part of the attributes of OUV

• The extensive quays and wharves of Hayle were said in the nomination to ‘survive largely intact’ and to ‘clearly define the character of the broad open shape of one of Europe’s most outstanding estuarine settings’

• Hayle was also said to ‘include the principal surviving fabric of the largest integrated mining and steam engine manufacturing centre anywhere in Britain’

Cornwall & West Devon Mining Landscape: Hayle Harbour


Derwent Valley Mills

Derwent Valley Mills OUV• The Derwent valley contains a series of 18th and 19th

century cotton mills and an industrial landscape of high historical and technological significance

• Richard Arkwright constructed a water-powered spinning mill at Cromford in 1771, and a second, larger mill in 1776–77 and established the "Arkwright System »

• The workers' housing associated with this and the other mills are intact and span 24km of the Derwent valley

• Much of the landscape setting of the mills and the industrial communities, which was much admired in the 18th and early 19th centuries, has survived


Derwent Valley Mills OUV

• The Derwent valley mills may be considered to be the model for factories throughout the world in subsequent centuries.

• The cultural landscape of the Derwent valley was where that the modern factory system was developed and established,

– to accommodate the new technology for spinning cotton developed by Richard Arkwright and new processes for efficient production

• The insertion of industrial establishments and housing into a rural landscape created an exceptional industrial landscape.


Derwent Valley Mills Attributes

• Mills• The relationship of the industrial installations

and their dependent housing settlements to the river and to the topography of the surrounding rural landscape

• The interdependence of the mills and other industrial elements, – such as the canals and railway, and the workers' housing


Derwent Valley Mills WHS: Belper

Tesco Stores, Belper

Tesco Store, Belper


• The credibility of the WH Convention

• Rests on the ability of the WH Committee and States Parties to

– Define and then sustain OUV over time


• If the Convention is to continue to be a visionary instrument

• And a major tool for global conservation

• OUV must underpin all actions associated with inscribed sites

– To achieve this necessitates:

– Sharper monitoring tools to allow the attributes that carry OUV to be monitored over time

– Greater awareness and understanding of OUV amongst all stakeholders –shared concern for the conservation of humanity’s heritage

Thank you


welcome to newcastle upon tyne ‘planning and world heritage’

Documents

world heritage of mankind

world heritage status

world heritage process

english heritage

heritage conventionsit

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cultural propertiesiucn

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