Professional Documents
Culture Documents
cimadomo@uma.es
1.- Introduction
valuable aspects of a society with which it recognizes and differentiate itself, are quiet modern
politics set up by governments, and are evolving at the same pace as society. The 1968 UNESCO
(UNESCO 1968), and the 1972 Convention concerning the protection of the world cultural and
natural heritage" (UNESCO 1972), make clear the aim of United Nations to identify and conserve
the achievements of the past in order to protect and to transmit it to future generations. Cultural
Heritage has to be seen as a fundamental part for the development and self-identification of
different civilizations, well defined by Kamenka (1988:134): the importance to human beings of
the sense of identity, given not so much by material improvement, but by customs and traditions, by
historical identification, by religion..., hence the improvement of cultural identity is pivotal for the
development of communities. Until recently, the identification of cultural heritage tangible and
strikes with the assumption that any community should be able to define their cultural identity
through the definition of what is worth to be protected and to leave to future generations (Blake
2000:68).
The role of communities in the protection of cultural heritage is slightly envisioned in the
1976 UNESCO Recommendation on the Safeguarding and Contemporary Role of Historic Areas
in its article number 21: This programming operation should be undertaken with the closet possible
participation of the communities and groups of people concerned (UNESCO 1976). This statement
is anyway related with the need of temporary or permanent accommodation of local inhabitants,
who did not have any decision power in the restoration of architectural heritage, in this case their
own dwellings, and not with their whole participation in the decisions about conservation.
Nevertheless the debate about the suitability of the Western approach to heritage has evolved from
these early experiences, where less represented people were frequently excluded by the decisions
related with their own heritage. Only recently the point of view of other cultures, different from the
Western dominant precolonial approach, has become a reality, starting with the Nara Document on
Authenticity of 1994, which recognizes the conservation process relative to context (Winter
2014:124). From this moment the notion of heritage has been evolving and can now be considered
extremely wide, including almost all elements of culture and nature. This aspect, with the
recognition of the great value that landscapes have in the understanding of heritage in a wider sense,
also offer new opportunities, as it is difficult to keep them freezed in our evolving society, an aspect
we will develop further on in this chapter. The Council of Europe "Framework Convention on the
Value of Cultural Heritage for Society", signed in 2005 in Faro, also if regulamentary limited to the
European Region, can be considered a turning point on the participation of communities in the
protection of cultural heritage, as it aims at emphasising the value and potential of cultural heritage
wisely used as a resource for sustainable development and quality of life in a constantly evolving
society, and also to reinforce social cohesion by fostering a sense of shared responsibility towards
the places in which people live (CoE 2005). The concept of heritage community is possibly for the
first time officially defined, as a group who value specific aspects of cultural heritage which they
wish to sustain and transmit to future generations, and it is also stated the need to open public
participation in discussions related with cultural heritage. The idea of Heritage by appropriation is
worth to be remembered here, as it considers all kinds of cultural, social, ethnological heritage,
including non-exceptional landscapes, anyway elements recognized by citizens as significant for
their everyday life, so meaningful to be transmitted to future generations (Dupagne et al. 2004:11).
This category, as stated by Tweed et al. (2007:63), underlines the growing democratization of
culture, and the active role communities can assume in the recognition and putting in charge of
heritage values.
A second category mentioned by Dupagne et al. (2004) is Heritage by designation, still the
most common one, when heritage is considered as a label or a qualifying attribute, listed and
institutionalized by experts, usually imposed to communities. This kind of heritage has a significant
order to preserve them, while what can be called second level heritage, of some interest at regional
or local scale, is usually labelled, but legal and economic responsibility for their conservation is up
to their owners, usually common citizens. This separation, between the legislator and the
administered creates many controversies, being the main injured the same heritage, and indirectly
detonator for social and economic development. But as the Periodic Report and Regional
Programme for Arab States reports (UNESCO 2004:40), more important than tourism for the
preservation of cultural heritage, are local human activities, with negative effects that only
education and the recognition of being member of a collective with its own identity can mitigate. It
is with this perspective that participation has to be implemented, in order to create activities and
knowledge about the opportunities which can be created for the development of the community.
Tourism dynamics can create the need for new necessities which can be easily hosted in second
level heritage buildings, a solution less expensive than abandoning them a common trend in
several contexts considering the social, historical and heritage issues related. These activities can
also be considered a detonator for social and economic development, also if they should be
correctly managed to have positive effects. Links of tourism with architectural heritage have in this
way a relevant paper that is worth to present to comprehend deeply their threats and opportunities
related with the concept of resource. Usually tourism-related and recreational activities are the
common conditions for the use of heritage, weather cultural or natural, but it is much more
important to assume the idea that heritage is not a sum of recognized objects worth to be protected,
but a territorial system where its relations with human actions create a sense as a whole, and in this
way have to be approached (Feria 2012:7). Sustainable tourism has to develop the local economy,
and has to bet for implementing models which support heritage politics, where the object of
touristic interest is protected, weather it is a building, a landscape or an intangible asset, and at the
same time make the benefit to be shared among the community involved, something we can define
as social sustainability. To reach these targets, analysis methodologies, and development proposals
for sustainable tourism models have to be established for the appreciation and protection of heritage
that would satisfy economical, social, and esthetic needs of the community (Pi Ninot et al. 2012).
Tourism can be considered as one of the most transforming and dynamic activities, and has to be
addressed together with local human actions in a short period of time in sensible and developing
countries, in order to protect their integrity and identity. It is therefore necessary to understand the
threats and opportunities that have to be addressed in contexts with scarce economic resources, in
order to maintain the identity of the inhabitants, and offering alternative responsible models that can
protect the existing architectural and landscape values (Cimadomo et al. 2012).
nevertheless evolving and fading into a new model where communities have a real participation in
its development. Information technologies offer wide new approaches to this engagement, and
several cases can be find all over the world. For example, the Scottish Coastal Heritage Risk Project
(SCHARP), mobilized volunteers from local communities to track the state of known coastal
archeology at risk. Volunteers are asked to visit sites at risk identified by the Scottish Coastal
Archaeology and the Problem of Erosion Trust (SCAPE) and update information and images to
report the conditions of vulnerable assets. In this way SCAPE can reduce its efforts to visit all the
assets on the more than nine thousand kilometers of Scottish coast, where erosion is a fast evolving
threat for the preservation of heritage assets, and take the decisions about the most endangered
archaeological sites to preserve (Dawson et al. 2013). The works of excavation to document the
most endangered sites at risk of disappearing have also been realized with the help of local
communities volunteers and associations, with the results to create empowerment of these local
associations in the knowledge and transmission of their cultural heritage. Many similar projects can
be found worldwide, in Lesotho, for instance, the archaeological works in the Metolong Dam
Catchment, made great efforts to involve local communities and to build capacity in archeology and
cultural heritage through training for Lesotho's National University teachers and students (Mitchell
and Arthur 2010), or the experience of Hermopolis, Greece, where GIS software, Information
Technology platforms and crowd-funding are being developed in order to safe private buildings
recognized of cultural interest, with an impelling economic situation which reduce the possibilities
If the experiences here presented are related with heritage items already identified, we have
to remember that there are a lot of situations where these values are still hidden and not recognized,
neither by the administration neither by the same communities that inhabit the place. It is then
important to realize surveys and documentation in the areas where social tendencies are changing
and pressures are growing, in order to offer guidelines and models to be adopted. Cataloging
heritage buildings means first of all to give a subjective value to some of them, in comparison with
other buildings located in the same place, but that are considered careless of interest. In the
following chapter we will discuss two experiences related with the documentation of building
heritage in Nicaragua and Morocco, two developing countries where tourism pressure have been
already detected, in order to evaluate the benefits of early heritage recognizance for the
development of communities.
The colonial town of Granada, Nicaragua, built in 1524 by Francisco Hernndez de Crdoba
according with the India's Laws for instance formally defined only after this foundation is
together with Leon the most attractive cultural attraction of the Country, and together with several
other colonial cities of Central America are at the center of an Heritage program impulsed by the
Spanish Agency for International Development (AECI-D). The architectural interest of the city is
due, paradoxically, from its destruction at the end of the 19th Century by the hand of the pirate
William Walker. Two typologies were used to rebuild the city after this event, from one side the
courtyard houses, following the same solutions used before the fire, from the other new stylistic
solutions were built by the new dominant classes, based on neoclassical or neobaroque tendencies
coming from Europe and North America. This twofold character is very important to be maintained,
as colonial style and unique buildings together define the character and history of the city. Under
this program many buildings have been rehabilitated in these centers, in order to protect the heritage
and to promote a development program. In Granada, Coln Square and the train station where
renewed in the decade of 1990es, and helped for a new interest in the city, soon transformed in a
national and international touristic target. Together with these specific interventions, a wider
program for the protection and development of Granada Historic center was developed in
collaboration with the municipality, with survey and typological studies of the built environment.
The scope of this program, active for more than ten years, was the dissemination and education
about the Plan and the public reconnaissance of the importance of the protection of cultural
heritage. The specific objectives of the program, understanding heritage as a social capital for the
community to enjoy and protect in order to be transmitted to future generations were the following
5. Participate in the cultural enrichment through participative work and sharing technical and
cultural capacities.
The program held at the Oficina del Centro Histrico de Granada, was developed
implementing an urban plan, with a building code to define the most common aspects of
construction to be observed by the citizens. The phases defined to accomplish this Plan were (Reyes
1999):
1. To realize a detailed survey of the 1.742 plots of the historic center, and several sectorial
analysis in order to prepare a general diagnostic of urban issues founded on the needs of the
2. To develop a urban plan for the protection and development of the historic center.
4. To update the Heritage catalogue, including new elements detected in the survey.
5. To define a general and economic strategy that would make possible the realization of the
plan.
The realization of point 4 was taken during the year 2000, and what previously was thought
to be just an upgrade of the previous catalogue developed by UNESCO in 1996, become an all new
document, taking into account all the documentation obtained during the survey phase, and the new
protection grades to be applied by the building code. Three main grade were defined: Integral, with
the protection of all the characteristics of the building, and the way it occupy the urban space, all
aspects that make it significant in the city. Estructural, with the protection of the basic ornamental
and structural elements of the building, in order to keep the articulation and occupation of urban
space. The less requiring level is Ambiental, used to protect the exterior of buildings in order to
keep volumetric relations, composition and homogeneity of materials for the maintaining of a
coherent image of the city, and is given to all the buildings included in the historic center area.
Number of
Grade of
Classification buildings
protection
declared
Integral,
Items with High Heritage Value 47
Estructural
Items with Heritage Value 25 Estructural
Items with High Stylistic Value
299 Ambiental
Facades
Buildings in the Historic Center 597 Ambiental
Items in the buffer zone 775 Ambiental
Public Urban Spaces 5 Ambiental
Table 1.- Grade of Protection and items affected (OCHG 2000).
What at a first stage generated many questions about the envisioned results of the program
were the real possibilities of the owners of the buildings declared, in a vast mayority private
families, to effectively maintain the built environment. A poor economy market, aligned with the
situation of the country, and null possibilities to receive funds from the municipality or other public
bodies, could create a negative effect on the aims of the program. The Catalogue of heritage
buildings realized by the author showed for instance a positive trend, converting all the buildings
included as high demanded by the growing amount of foreigners that were moving to the city and
looked at these buildings as a way to invest their capitals (Cimadomo 2008:259). The inclusion of a
building in the catalogue was seen no more as an increased bureaucratic difficulty for their owners,
but as a positive value, growing their value on the market. Since the publication of the catalogue the
real estate market increased the number of transactions, a positive trend for the local economy and
creating new facilities for supporting the increasing tourism. A key point in this trend was the
possibility established in the protection levels to change the use of the building, as new activities,
often related with the requirements of tourism, could be implemented in these historic buildings.
Without this trend possibly many of these buildings would not have had the possibility to be
restored and preserved, due to the economical difficulties previously exposed. Other aspects would
need a deeper evaluation, from gentrification issues to real benefits in a long perspective for the
community, but from an heritage conservation point of view, we can consider that the catalogue,
and the whole program implemented in the city, had a positive outcome on the conservation of the
built heritage, and on the social and economical activities of the community involved.
A second experience related with the documentation of cultural heritage in order to boost the
economical activities of communities has been held in the presaharian Mgoun Valley, in the South
of Morocco, where the beauty of the landscape and the rural entourage, with earthen architectures
with great heritage values offer a geat opportunity to test protection and development relations with
touristic activities. Tourism in the presaharian Mgoun Valley (Morocco) focuses on, and has to be
addressed, together with local human activities in a short period of time, in order to protect the
Valley's identity and its cultural heritage (Cimadomo et al. 2012). The first conclusions realized
after the earlier surveys consider the valley and its earthen architecture as a living cultural
landscape, in order to foster its enhancement and guarantee its survival and development (Nogueira
documentation of the landscape units existing and the analysis of development patterns of the urban
centres has been carried out during two Workshops held in 2011 and 2012 by the School of
Architecture of Malaga, in a wider project for the proposal of responsible tourism models. We
consider this act as a first step that let the owners to realize the exceptional value of their buildings,
and to recognize them as something worth to protect and maintain, and eventually as a possible
source of new incomes. Aware of the threats related with a similar work, that can be resumed in the
lack of State or City norms that oblige to conserve properly the buildings recognized with a cultural
value, and also the lack of institutional aids dedicated to the conservation and rehabilitation of these
buildings, that together with the economic subsistence situation of many of the owners difficult the
proper conservation of this heritage, the proposition to generate a new trend in cultural tourism,
respectful with the habitat of the region is considered a way to generate incomes for the inhabitants
that will also oblige them to invest in the conservation of the buildings, in order to maintain this
flow.
Protecting and maintaining heritage and landscape values in contexts like the one found in
the Mgoun Valley is only possible, from our personal point of view, if they are recognized as
relevant aspects that can foster the living conditions of their population. Incomes from the correct
use of these assets can generate pride in their owners, like it was centuries ago when they were
built, and a way to increase their economical status, a relevant aspect for the subsistence economic
model, but only if the people of the Valley is an active part in the decisions related with it. This
project we are undertaking, which combines heritage, landscape and tourism, may have, as a result,
a new look for the local population at their own heritage, which leads to the acknowledgment of the
values of earth architecture. We look with expectation for the effects of the catalogue, that won't
have any reglamentation associated, but will show in a tangible way, specially to the same
community, the most interesting buildings of the Valley. We think that if properly recognized,
renewing these buildings to recover their use or to destine them to new ones, can be less expensive
than abandoning them, apart of the social, historical and heritage issues related. Tourism can offer
the need for new necessities that can be easily hosted in these buildings, being the easiest and
In this panorama, much has to be done, starting with the need to find general trends for the
protection of the cultural heritage, a value that if correctly administered, can be a detonator for
social and economic development. A lack of maintenance occasioned usually by abandon is the
origin of the deterioration of rammed-earth buildings, which tend in a short period of time to the
collapse and disappearing of the objetct (Bui et al. 2009). However, it also means that it is possible
to recuperate the original units, which have not been transformed yet. We consider it, therefore, a
great opportunity to preserve and value an heritage with priceless cultural and architectural wealth,
which is immersed in a crucial trend with respect to the neglect of the buildings for new typologies
based on contemporary constructive solutions and materials. The aim of this project is not just to
catalogue and disseminate information related to this heritage, but to create viable proposals for
sustainable touristic development through the analysis of landscape, urban development, and
society, being the publication of an Heritage Catalogue the first step for the involvement of local
4.- Conclusions
The work realized by the author in Granada (Nicaragua), and the field works realized in the
Mgoun Valley (Morocco) have been used to show how the process of identifying and cataloging
architectural heritage can have positive effects on local communities, as it can be the first step to
realize the exceptional value of their buildings, and to recognize them as something worth to protect
and maintain, and eventually as possible sources of new incomes. The threats identified can be
resumed in the lack of State or City codes, that oblige to conserve properly the buildings recognized
with a cultural value, but also when protected by specific norms the lack of institutional aids
dedicated to the conservation and rehabilitation of these buildings, together with the economic
situation of many of the owners that live in subsistence economies, difficult their conservation
(Cimadomo et al. 2012). New tools and IT offer today the possibility to actively engage
communities from the first steps of the survey and identification of cultural heritage, whose effects
are considered highly positive in the process of strengthen cultural identity through the protection of
cultural heritage (Cimadomo 2013). When communities realize the value of their built heritage from
the very beginning of the process, saying we face with a mix of Heritage by appropriation and
Heritage by assignation described early in this chapter, or with an effective participative process, it
is much easier to proceed in the acceptation of the need to preserve it for future generations. Passing
from the notion of cultural heritage as single items to protect, to the development of a whole urban
or landscape integrity of the most relevant buildings object to preservation, is also offering new
opportunities. Understanding them as living systems, where people is living and social dynamics
are being developed, move the attention to the search of sustainable development activities, which
offer payback to communities, but also to the built heritage, that is part of the equation, and need to
be maintained in order to balance these activities. We have seen as tourism is one of the strongest
forces in these developments, but also one of the riskiest activities for maintaining cultural
identities, hence the importance of focusing on local human activities, and only in a second
moment, on the integration of touristic activities. From this point on, as seen in many different
projects, the participation of local association, or communities in general, in the effort to protect
local cultural heritage is possible in several different ways, and depend only by the program
be promoted and expressed, and to do so, it is necessary to compare the area's identity with the
place's potential, something that not all the stakeholders realize or are aware of, in order to define
how to develop it without any loss of identity (Parente 2012:58). A place's soul is hardly affected
and transformed when tourism pressures are not well controlled, and threats like erosion,
overcrowding, damage and conservations become real risks.
5.- References