The values embodied in cultural heritage

Cultural heritage

Cultural heritage is the legacy of physical artifacts and intangible attributes of a group or society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations...

 are identified in order to assess significance, prioritize resources, and inform conservation decision-making. It is recognised that values may compete and change over time, and that heritage may have different meanings for different stakeholders.

Origins

Alois Riegl

Alois Riegl

Alois Riegl was an Austrian art historian, and is considered a member of the Vienna School of Art History...

 is credited with developing Ruskin

John Ruskin

John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...

's concept of 'voicefulness' into a systematic categorization of the different values of a monument

Monument

A monument is a type of structure either explicitly created to commemorate a person or important event or which has become important to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, or simply as an example of historic architecture...

. In his 1908 essay Der moderne Denkmalkultus (The modern cult of monuments) he describes historical value, artistic value, age value, commemorative value, use value, and newness value. Riegl demonstrates that some of these values conflict and argues that they may be culturally contingent

Contingency (philosophy)

In philosophy and logic, contingency is the status of propositions that are neither true under every possible valuation nor false under every possible valuation . A contingent proposition is neither necessarily true nor necessarily false...

.

Charters and Conventions

The UNESCO

UNESCO

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...

 World Heritage Convention addresses cultural sites of outstanding universal value, from an historical

History

History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

, aesthetic

Aesthetics

Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...

, scientific

Science

Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

, ethnological

Ethnology

Ethnology is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity.-Scientific discipline:Compared to ethnography, the study of single groups through direct...

 or anthropological

Anthropology

Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...

 perspective, and highlights the need for authenticity. Discussed in the 1964 Venice Charter

Venice Charter

The Venice Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites is a treaty that gives an international framework for the preservation and restoration of ancient buildings...

, values and the question 'why conserve?' are the focus of the 1979 Burra Charter

Burra Charter

The Burra Charter defines the basic principles and procedures to be followed in the conservation of Australian heritage places.In 1979, the Australia ICOMOS Charter for the Conservation of Places of Cultural Significance was adopted at a meeting of Australia ICOMOS at the historic mining town of...

 (last revised 1999). Cultural significance is said to be 'embodied' in the fabric, setting, use, associations, and meanings of a place, and includes aesthetic, historic, scientific, social and spiritual values for past, present and future generations. In order to preserve such values a 'cautious approach' of minimum intervention is advocated.

Practice

Significance assessment typically includes consideration of the rarity, representativeness, and communicative power of assets and their values. These are then managed in order to sustain and valorize that significance. Engagement with the economic value of heritage may help promote its preservation.

See also

• World Heritage Site
  World Heritage Site
  A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place that is listed by the UNESCO as of special cultural or physical significance...
  
  
• Cultural heritage management
  Cultural Heritage Management
  Cultural heritage management is the vocation and practice of managing cultural heritage. It is a branch of cultural resources management , although it also draws on the practices of conservation, restoration, museology, archaeology, history and architecture...
  
  
• Conservation-restoration
• Value pluralism
• Intrinsic value (ethics)
  Intrinsic value (ethics)
  Intrinsic value is an ethical and philosophic property. It is the ethical or philosophic value that an object has "in itself" or "for its own sake", as an intrinsic property...
  
  
• Collective memory
  Collective memory
  Collective memory refers to the shared pool of information held in the memories of two or more members of a group, and was coined by the philosopher and sociologist Maurice Halbwachs. Collective memory can be shared, passed on and constructed by groups both small and large...
  
  

External links

• Assessing the Values of Cultural Heritage (GCI
  Getty Conservation Institute
  The Getty Conservation Institute , located in Los Angeles, California, is a program of the J. Paul Getty Trust. It is headquartered at the Getty Center but also has facilities at the Getty Villa, and commenced operation in 1985. The GCI is a private international research institution dedicated to...
  
   research report)
• Values and Heritage Conservation (GCI
  Getty Conservation Institute
  The Getty Conservation Institute , located in Los Angeles, California, is a program of the J. Paul Getty Trust. It is headquartered at the Getty Center but also has facilities at the Getty Villa, and commenced operation in 1985. The GCI is a private international research institution dedicated to...
  
  research report; annotated bibliography at pages 73-96)