topic
introduction
In all its multiple
meanings the word heritage refers to what we inherit from the past, both in
material and immaterial sense.
Some authors speak
about heritage as a sense of past, meant as a form of past self-awareness, as a
collective experience and as an essential dimension of a culture. Some other
authors believe that the idea of heritage deals with the ability to put the
contemporary human signs into an historical perspective, so developing a sense
of place, that is the place’s value and meaning.
Therefore, heritage
can be intended as sense of past and sense of place together.
The heritage’s
existence itself lies in the ability to read/interpret the sense of belonging
of something inherited from the past to a specific place, as well as in the
shared need to preserve and deliver it to future generations.
Heritage is one of
the main drivers of contemporary tourism. The World Tourism Organization
estimates that 40 percent of global journeys are cultural ones. The WTO itself
defines cultural tourism as “a type of tourism activity in which the
visitor’s essential motivation is to learn, discover, experience and
consume the tangible and intangible cultural attractions/products in a tourism
destination. These attractions/products relate to a set of distinctive
material, intellectual, spiritual and emotional features of a society that
encompasses arts and architecture, historical and cultural heritage, culinary
heritage, literature, music, creative industries and the living cultures with
their lifestyles, value systems, beliefs and traditions” (WTO, 2017). The
term Heritage Tourism is meant to define that particular field of cultural
tourism characterized by the interest in the specific heritage of a tourist
destination, whether the heritage is material or immaterial, natural or
cultural, minor or exceptional, already safeguarded or not.
In different ways,
Heritage Tourism can be an important development engine and a crucial element
in urban regeneration processes, but also a risk factor for the heritage and
places’ preservation.
Starting from an idea
of heritage meant as sense of past and sense of place, the conference intends
to reflect on Heritage Tourism. The knowledge of places and the designing
perspective, at the architectural, urban and landscape scale, are considered
interpretative keys for reading the potentialities as well as the critical
issues linked to touristic heritage fruition. Can the architectural project
offer new ways to interpret, read and understand heritage and heritagisation
processes? How working on heritage in order to make it accessible without
endangering it? What are the research tools and the designing operations we
should rely on to strengthen the relationships between heritage and context?
How can the architect’s gaze contribute to enhance places characterized
by the presence of heritage, answering to the multiple and various needs
demanded by locals and tourists?
Participants in the
conference, through theoretical contributes as well as case-study presentations,
will have the chance to discuss the forms the project may assume at the various
scales in relation with the touristic fruition and promotion of places involved
in heritagisation processes.
parallel sessions
The 90 selected
contributions were organized in 12 sessions, attributable to four main thematic
axes: Landscapes, Cities, History and Projects.
A.1 • Landscapes
The landscape,
understood in its broader cultural meaning as a place where signs and memories
deriving from the interaction of natural and anthropic factors are stratified
over time, is the destination par excellence of heritage tourism. There
are therefore many landscapes characterized by diversified forms of
heritage, whose richness is intensified by the existence of a dense network of relationships
- physical and visual, material and intangible - that are offered to the
tourist's gaze. Through theoretical contributions and, together, case studies
more based on an operational approach, the authors explore multiple ways of
dealing with different landscapes, favoring
their readability and stimulating a specific form of critical perception of
places through the tools of the project.
A.2 • Scenarios
Building scenarios,
foreshadowing possible futures for places characterized by the presence of heritage,
while pursuing its protection and enhancement. The contributions collected in
this session reflect on the different modalities of intervention on the
heritage downstream of a careful reading of the specific characteristics of the
many case studies being analyzed. The formulation of
tools to support public institutions to evaluate possible investments in the
field of heritage enhancement from a tourism perspective, is accompanied, in
the contributions of this session, by a new focus on places penalized by the
more consolidated international routes and the proposals for the reconversion
of abandoned areas or areas damaged by traumatic events. In this way, the
reports proposed by the authors construct a kaleidoscope of possible
interpretative tools and design techniques to be critically adopted for the
places affected by patrimonialization processes.
A.3 • Archaeology
The places of archeology, whether they are kept in the heart of pulsating
cities or, vice versa, emerging in landscapes far from urban centers, are always extraordinary opportunities to
concretely use memory as an instrument of the project. The contributions
collected in this session show how much looking at the ruins of the past offers
the possibility of foreshadowing future destinies for a heritage that is often
waiting to be redesigned and valued. The authors, by presenting multiple case
studies - sometimes already known in the global panorama, sometimes still
unknown to international tourist flows - reveal possible operational methods to
activate the attractive and regenerative potential of places characterized by
the presence of archaeological signs. Specific design interventions aimed at
improving the readability of past and present stratifications are therefore
combined with the enhancement of the sites, with a view to a tourist and
cultural enjoyment that feeds on the interactions between different times in
history.
A.4 • Abandonment, Degradation, and Reuse
In every part of the
world many places, although characterized by the presence of new forms of
heritage not always recognized or valued, are often the object of oblivion,
abandonment and decay. Therefore, these are waiting places, often full
of extraordinary potential, capable of soliciting multiple project visions. It
is through hypotheses of reuse, reconversion and formal re-composition that
these places acquire new life in the project proposals of the contributions
collected in this session. The archaeological-industrial heritage, the mining
landscapes and the disused asylum complexes constitute some of the specific
case studies with which the authors, promoters of multiple regeneration and re-functionalization
operations aimed at stimulating sustainable and conscious forms of tourism.
B.1 • Landscape Itineraries
In recent times mass
tourism has been accompanied by slower and more aware forms of cognitive
experience of the territories. Crucial therefore becomes not only the
investigation of possible ways and the necessary tools to tell the character of
the places, but also their being points of itineraries consolidated in history
or to be invented in the present. The contributions collected in this session,
through specific case studies, outline the development of slow tourist routes,
capable of offering new perspectives of already known places or, vice versa,
opening up new scenarios in the eyes of visitors. Reconversion of disused
infrastructural lines into cycle paths, construction of thematic paths that
weave evocative narratives of the history of the landscapes crossed and enhancement
of ancient paths constitute some of the possible visions and design actions
implemented by the authors.
B.2 • Cities
The city, as a place
capable of condensing signs and memories, is the destination of huge tourist
flows directly connected to the use of the heritage. Tourism, on the other
hand, with its important economic and cultural implications, is increasingly
influencing urban architecture and the life of its residents. The case studies
collected in this session highlight the lights and shadows of a phenomenon
capable of tangibly orienting the destiny of urban spaces. Tourist flows centered on only some specific sections of the cities,
weary processes of urban systems resulting from the pressure of visitors and
episodes of Disneyfication of historic centers
find, in the contributions presented, effective tools for contrast and
mitigation. The authors also illustrate concrete methods of intervention in
stratified urban contexts through specific project interventions, capable of enhancing
the historical heritage of the city, avoiding forms of segregation and
crystallization of the most important architectural episodes.
B.3 • History Understanding
Looking at a place as
a schedule, to understand its complex history and multiple layers, is an essential
condition for ensuring that heritage tourism becomes a real resource in
support of the enhancement of heritage. The contributions collected in this
session address the question of the historical reading of places, questioning
the specific role that the architectural project can assume in narrating
events, evoking suggestions, re-proposing analogies and explaining the meaning
of the transformations that have occurred to sites or artifacts. To this end,
the authors present multiple methodological, operational and cultural tools,
capable of interpreting the history of places in relation to our present.
B.4 • Projects
The project is an
instrument of knowledge and interpretation, even before being a projection,
in the future, of a renewed condition of the places under investigation. It is
through the lens of the project, at its different scales, that the authors of
the contributions collected in this session address the theme of heritage
tourism. From the design of accommodation facilities, in places already
more or less known to large international flows, up to the enhancement of the
buildings affected by the earthquake, finding in the traumatic event an
unprecedented engine of heritage regeneration. In its many forms, the project,
within this thematic session, is assumed as a critical tool to guide possible
future scenarios of sustainable tourist use of heritage.
C.1 • Marginal Areas
The inland areas are
territories that are difficult to access, far from the driving forces and
characterized by an intrinsic fragility that has in any case allowed them to
preserve identity characteristics and environmental resources. These places
today, increasingly sought after by forms of conscious tourism, are
characterized by the presence of sometimes opposing phenomena: on the one hand
the progressive depopulation, on the other the massive but intermittent
presence of tourists, which conflicts with their identity. In this session,
contributions relating to Italian inland areas are presented, configured as
stratified territorial areas capable of rediscovering and renewing, through
targeted project actions, more evident forms of relationship between
territories and local communities.
C.2 • Urban Itineraries
Direct exploration of
the city allows you to look closely at that immense open-air deposit of
memories, signs, places, public and private spaces, which in an urban center coexist extraordinarily seamlessly over time. The
city, therefore, often offers tourists the opportunity to make real journeys
within it, crossing thresholds, material or intangible, which reveal to their
eyes a multiplicity of places to visit. The contributions collected in
this session therefore reflect on the richness of the urban heritage, sometimes
to be reconquered civically, as in the case of assets confiscated from the
mafia, sometimes to be rediscovered, for example, through underground paths of
knowledge of the underground archaeological city. The authors therefore
outline, by presenting specific case studies, new forms of touristic
exploration of the city, through thematic itineraries built around the concept
of heritage.
C.3 • Museums and Musealization
The museum, the main
institution of the cultural production project, today is no longer just a
container but is itself a schedule, a heterotopia that connects the tangible
and the intangible. Heritage tourism looks at these places by its very nature,
encouraging their enhancement in the case of already consolidated institutions,
and promoting their birth in the territories where the growth of tourism is
more recent, stimulating multiple planning reflections linked both to the
conservation of physical finds and to the protection of intangible values.
Real case studies and
imaginative provocations are collected in this session to address the issue of
the transmissibility of heritage in its various forms, experimenting with new
devices for the narration of the memory of places.
C.4 • Tools, Methods, and Strategies
Heritage
tourism, in its complexity, needs to be investigated through multidisciplinary
visions that allow the development of tools, methods and strategies to
effectively guide the transformation processes related to it. The impact of
tourist pressure on the communities of historic cities and smaller rural centers, the opportunities for reconfiguration of urban
passages currently not valued, and the rediscovery of new forms of archeology scattered throughout the landscape, are
some of the themes addressed by the authors in this session as a field of
experimentation for the implementation of diversified but synergistic actions.
Among these: the direct involvement of citizens in the processes of heritage
enhancement, the construction of specific platforms that can be practiced
virtually, the design of the temporary space as a tool for the re-signification
of a place.
keynote speakers abstracts
Luigi Franciosini
Time and duration
In this phase in which ‘there is no other
time left, just the present, this is the apex of what will be and what was, of
that instant in which the drop falls into the hourglass’, I believe that
what is required of the forgetful and desacralized contemporary world ‘of
travelers and discoverers, is first of all a path of
recognition of the multiplicity and depths that nourish the existence: to bring
out the secret veins of things’ (Tahar Ben Jelloun, 1993).
Ernst Jünger, in a
free reflection, exposes ‘the idea that the moon can be the subject of
both an astronomical and mythical approach and that its surface possesses both
a real and measurable and a physiognomic character’ and follows saying
that:
‘both qualities can be combined in a
synoptic form, if the mind has the ability. […] In this case the leap is
successful, the leap backwards towards the origin; and from the perspective
coincidence of opposites, (Author’s note: physical and metaphysical), a
new dimension arises that not only unites them in a spatial sense, but exalts
them qualitatively’.
Before making the leap backwards, the leap
towards the origin, one must get rid of the unnecessary.
The place, once occupied by the feeling of the
sacred, is not entirely lost: ‘the shoreline remains and the sunset over
it’ (Ernst Jünger, 2000). In that unstable and
vague dimension of the shoreline, there is still the power of attraction, the
inexhaustible richness of re-knowing, re-knitting, connecting what has been
separated.
It is the time of research, wanderings,
departures and listening.
Maria Gravari-Barbas
Heritage and tourism. The experiential turn
Several factors of change (social, economic or cultural) point to major changes today and in the coming years and call for heritage to be approached from a new perspective.
We can advance that we are in the threshold of a “new regime of heritage” characterizing contemporary society. It forms a system with the new phase of globalization, it calls into question the “stock” heritage of a Nation and its inalienability. It is characterized by its “transactionality” and “performativity”, by close links to tourist mobility, or even an increased touristic construction of heritage, and by its shift from the object per se towards its intangible potential (social, relational, economic, etc.).
These heritage evolutions are to put in relation with the experiential turn of tourism which moves consumption away from ‘the tourist gaze’ (Urry, 1990: 219), as tourists are increasingly concerned with not just being ‘there’, but with participating, learning and experiencing the ‘there’ they visit. Experiential tourism moves from the contemplation and admiration of the visited sites towards an implicated and even empathetic relationship with them.
The lecture will
analyze and introduce the shift towards post-heritage, introduced by a complex
set of changes both in heritage and (experiential) tourism.
After insisting in a first part on current
changes of heritage (1), the lecture will show the emergence of a new heritage
paradigm qualified as ‘post-heritage’ (2). It will then analyze the
implications of experiential approaches of heritage tourism (3) and will
articulate experience to authenticity
(4). It will finally briefly present a case study which illustrates the post-heritage
turn and the production of new heritage and tourism sites, this case being the
Lower East Side Tenement Museum in NY.
Mirella Loda
Heritage tourism in the aftermath of
the pandemic
In literature, the notion of Heritage has moved
over time from identifying monuments/objects to designating an increasingly
broad and complex range of phenomena. In the case of urban contexts, this
complexification of the notion of Heritage is reflected in the increasingly
frequent use of the concept of ‘Historical Urban Landscape’.
However, the transposition of this concept from the theoretical level to that
of analysis and above all of asset management, still represents a very
difficult challenge.
Using the example of the Florentine case study,
the contribution illustrates a) how the same tourist practices of
consumption/use of heritage tend to deviate from the visit of the monument
strictly intended and proposed by tourism marketing, and to trigger new
processes of capitalization; b) how a more courageous reinterpretation of the idea
of Heritage, if placed at the basis of tourism policies, could help to better
balance the multiple needs of the local population with those of visitors.
Dallen Timothy
Mass Tourism, Extraordinary Heritage
and Valorizing the Ordinary Past of Everyday Life
Since the Second World War, tourism has grown
exponentially through modern technology, increased access and mobility, and globalization
processes. Through these processes and mechanisms, tourism has become one of
the world’s largest industries, and large masses of tourists have
descended upon cities, rural areas, and coastal areas by the hundreds of
millions each year at a scale heretofore unseen. With the growth of mass tourism
since the 1960s, heritage assets have become a major focus of tourists’
attention with world-famous cultural attractions having been overrun by tourist
masses in the past three decades. This has major implications for historic
cities such as Venice, Barcelona, Prague, and Beijing, as well as individual
sites such as the Great Wall of China, Machu Pichu, and the Pyramids of Egypt.
This presentation argues that part of the solution to this mass ‘overtourism’ might be to redirect people’s
attention to the lesser known heritages of the world. Although most tourists
still want to experience the ‘great’ heritage sites of the world,
there is evidence that people are becoming less satisfied with the grandiose cultural
past and more desirous to experience the ordinary heritage of ordinary
people—how ordinary people lived and continue to live. The presentation
will show that ordinary heritage is equally important (if not more so) as the
grand, famous, and globally iconic heritage places and is in dire need of conservation
support, which can be assisted through tourism. Mass tourism is not the answer,
but selective promotion among niche consumer markets might be part of the solution
as the tourism marketplace appears to be narrowing into special interest market
segments that desire to see and experience the cultural heritage of ordinary
people.