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Salvaging Buildings : reclaiming a livelihood from the excesses of Istanbul's mass urbanization
(2023)
Turkey’s demolition waste management is, to a great extent, dependent on çıkmacıs (reclaimers) who salvage condemned buildings for raw materials and architectural elements. Its urbanization history is full of key moments marked by building demolitions, which became a necessary material resource for informal urbanization. As early as the 1970s, the çıkmacıs helped the gecekondus [squatter houses] by supplying second-hand building materials and construction loans. They managed to turn a lack of infrastructure into an advantage and remain very adaptable to the ever-changing conditions of neo-liberalized urbanization. They depend on solidarity networks and other informal resources. Assemblage thinking helps to redefine the concept of informality, understand the relational dynamics between various actors, and focus on the agency of materials. The empirical data gained from ‘follow the thing’ ethnographic research in Turkey and Georgia reveals the double lives of çıkmacıs who move between village and city. Additionally, by following the example of a reclaimed window frame’s journey from Istanbul to Tbilisi, we can more clearly see the second-hand trade network in the context of urbanization and incremental architecture. In the context of waste’s materiality, the empirical part of the research shows the symbiotic relationship between çıkmacıs and the discarded demolition materials.
Urban heritage planning in Tehran and beyond : sequences of disrupted spatial-discursive assemblages
(2023)
Despite the impact of ideological rigidity, the primary challenge of heritage planning in Tehran and beyond lies not in the dominance of an inflexible Authorized Heritage Discourse, but rather in the absence of stable spatial-discursive and administrative structures. Solmaz Yadollahi maps the historical trajectory of conservation and urban heritage planning in Iran, depicting a discursive-spatial assemblage that tends to knock down its accumulated resources. This is in line with Katouzian's portrayal of Iran as a pick-axe society. Residing within this society, the studied assemblage strives to deconstruct the prevailing structures and usher in a fresh one, paradoxically perpetuating the very cycle it seeks to escape.
Wetlands have gained tremendous importance since the 1970s, both in scientific discussion and in government policy discourse. The Ramsar Convention provided some clarity in definitions of wetlands and their natural and social significance. However, the current scientific understanding of wetlands was constructed in the centers of knowledge production in the West. One of the consequences has been that local knowledge of wetlands has been obscured or ignored altogether. This research uses methods of historical archaeology, ethnography, and archival work to explore the Anlo's local knowledge of wetlands in Ghana. Anlo local knowledge includes unique forms of wetland ownership arrangements, appropriate management approaches, and so-called atsidza are used as epistemic tools. Bryan Norton's conceptual framework of adaptive management gives an important role to local experimentation and is therefore seen as a key tool for sustainable management. Adaptive management is understood as anlo-style consensus-building management to appropriately incorporate local knowledge and western science into wetland management. The concept of adaptive management is modified accordingly to integrate postcolonial studies of knowledge production and thus can also contribute to the critical analysis of the integration of local knowledge, which has tended to be underestimated or even ignored in postcolonial theories.
This Master’s thesis research investigates how and if sharing authority is happening through a participatory exhibit, specifically by critically analyzing the Community Altar (CA) exhibit at Denver Botanic Gardens (DBG) from 2018. This case was selected partly due to the proliferation of Día de los Muertos exhibits and related celebrations occurring in museums steadily since the 1970s, particularly in a United States context. The context of working with this intangible cultural heritage practice brings up interesting questions in light of intensifying discussions in museum management surrounding equity and sharing authority. Furthermore, methods for examining how to share authority—particularly through participatory exhibit design with local communities and cultural heritage—remain lightly explored from theoretical perspectives. Through a qualitative content analysis, this research assesses results from exhibit planning documents and in-person interviews with CA participants and DBG staff members. Ultimately, this research suggests that in order to initiate sharing authority between CA exhibit participants and DBG, empowerment through “transformative participation” needs to occur (White, 1996). The planning structure of the CA exhibit should empower involved community members and DBG staff to co-produce exhibit elements in a co-creative way. A discussion around what empowerment means is offered in the end of the study, including that DBG staff can further support Community Altars participants in utilizing lived experience(s) as curatorial authority.
Architectural conservation is conventionally associated with preservation of buildings or ensembles that were seats of religious or secular power marking great architectural, political, or scientific accomplishments.
Dark and difficult heritage concerns events of disasters, extermination, and war. But what happens to stories and their places that do not fit into any of these categories? They are neither grand or beautiful, nor explicitly traumatic but nonetheless they embed cultural values and norms, or perhaps even the opposite of them: the bordellos and the marginalised groups of society that are usually disregarded in heritage discourses.
The question of sex work in contemporary culture holds an important place, as it is connected to social and economic rights of women. Historic sex work, and the places associated with it, imbed in this sense a contention value, because still today it provokes debate among different interest groups.
This research work presents the first in-depth study into the location of Florentine bordellos and sex workers between 1860 and 1888. It was a central moment in the history of these women and their trade because a new regulation on sex work was introduced by the recently unified Italian state which spatially controlled the sex trade. Each bordello and the sex workers came under intense scrutiny of the law. What was a dramatic development in the life of these women at the time, has allowed for extensive historical analysis.
The research draws primarily from over 5,000 archived police files and examines the location of sex trade in relation to the legal framework provided by the regulation known as the Regolamento Cavour. It was to ensure that sex workers would not pass on any venereal disease, while, at the same time, strived to maintain moral order in a continuously growing city, faced with urban development. In addition, the historic spatial development of bordellos within the perimeter of the ancient city walls was studied as well as the economic and political factors which influenced the position of a bordello within the urban fabric. For that purpose, the study incorporated information from historic city and street directories as well as cadastre maps. These different layers of information are conveyed in numerous maps to visualise the spatial context of and relation between sex work and spaces.
For more than a decade, the interconnected structures of the Buddhist earthen heritage in Wanla village/Ladakh, illustrated most prominently by the historic Avalokiteshvara Temple, have been researched, conserved, and restored by the NGOs Achi Association and Achi Association India. In the fifteen articles of this publication, the interdisciplinary team of architects, art conservators, conservation scientists, art historians, and archaeologists present the results of their work with the village community for the preservation of this exceptional cultural heritage. They provide insights into a training programme for young people interested in their heritage, and explain the art historical details, construction techniques, building materials, building archaeology, and state of conservation of these structures, as well as the iconography of art works. This is all enriched by the conservation reports and documentation of several buildings.
All these efforts combined three major approaches: a fabric-based and a value-based analysis and assessment, along with a people-centred conservation.
Conservation work on cultural heritage occurs mostly ‘behind the scenes’, hidden away from the general public. Research has shown, however, that there is considerable interest from tourists and locals alike to gain insights into conservation practice. While this can be done through visits to conservation laboratories or heritage sites, an additional tool to complement these visits is to provide documentary films of ongoing conservation work.
In the summer of 2016, a group of international master’s students from different study programmes at Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg visited Florence to study issues related to the preservation of cultural heritage. In particular, they examined conservation-related work being done at the Courtyard of Michelozzo in the Palazzo Vecchio, where Giorgio Vasari originally decorated the upper wall sections and ceiling with frescoes in 1565. Due to daily wear and tear, which has been exacerbated by a high number of visitors as well as climatic conditions, conservation work became necessary to address soiled painted surfaces, disintegrating plaster and missing sections of the plaster and paint layers.
This collection of papers addresses a variety of topics relating to the wall paintings by Vasari, as well as threats and tools to protect and conserve them and other cultural heritage sites that are faced with growing tourism. This student project was carried out in collaboration with the UNESCO Office of the Municipality of Florence (Carlo Francini and Chiara Bocchio), the Fine Arts Department of the Municipality of Florence (Giorgio Caselli), the director of the conservation work (Fabio Sforzi), wall painting conservators of the Vasari frescoes (Cristina Conti and Alessandra Popple), the Department of Architectural Conservation at Università di Firenze (Giuseppe Centauri and Daniela Chiesi) and the BTU Media Centre (Ralf Schuster).
Studio Bagan is conceptualized as an interdisciplinary preservation studio to foster applied knowledge transfer in the fields of cultural heritage management, urban and regional planning and designing in historic contexts. In 2017, during the first edition of “Studio Bagan: Building in Heritage Contexts” the students undertook a careful assessment of the issue of “temple climbing” and developed concepts for alternative and heritage-sensitive viewing platforms. In 2018, the second Studio Bagan under the theme “Heritage Tourism – Conflicts and Chances” addressed a broader range of challenges related to tourism and heritage. Both studios followed the agenda of (1) exploring, (2) understanding the cultural significance of the place and analyzing identified problems, and then (3) developing conceptual approaches and strategies. The results of the students’ work are compiled in this publication as a collection of ideas for Myanmar’s flagship destination, Bagan. The results of the students’ work in 2018 are compiled in this publication as a collection of ideas for Myanmar’s flagship destination, Bagan.
The publication addresses architectural conservation as a discipline that plays a vital role in the construction of identities, and therefore, is prone to being appropriated for political purposes. The publication contains 14 research papers that reflect diverse ideologised memorialisation processes and have been grouped by three sub-themes: destruction/reconstruction, transformation, and interpretation. The international contributors from diverse academic backgrounds discuss heritage politics in different cultural regions, nation-states, and political systems in order to investigate cases of ideologised heritage conservation and their relationship to religion, history, and politics.
The report “Studio Bagan: Building in Heritage Context” presents an in-depth study of the issue of monument climbing at Bagan, one of Asia’s most important Buddhist sites. Originally built during the 11th to 13th centuries the site comprises more than 3.000 Buddhist monuments ranging from small stupas and temples to monastic complexes and several enormous stucco-covered structures on an area of about 25 square kilometres.
The core concept of the research project that resulted in the report was to work across the disciplines of architectural conservation, heritage studies and design. Thus, the study was conducted by academics of respective fields and master students of World Heritage Studies, architecture and urban planning. The project applied approaches from social sciences as applied in architectural conservation in order to guide the architectural design process. These included values-based approaches for gaining an understanding of the site and of the stakeholders’ needs; heritage impact assessments to identify beneficial (and adverse) characteristics for potential alternative viewing platforms; typology exploration and location analysis through the SWOT process.