DEVELOPING A SIGNIFICANCE-BASED STRATEGY FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF CULTURAL HERITAGE SITES

Abstract

Cultural heritage sites are commonly identified on the basis of their heritage values and significances. Though, cultural heritage significances are often acknowledged, yet are probably too intangible to be integrated into the management and development processes of heritage sites.
This paper demonstrates a research work that has been looking at developing a strategy for interpreting/understanding cultural heritage sites based on identifying their significances, and the possibility for evaluating such significances for the purpose of connecting them to site management objectives. The research employed qualitative research methodology, where the investigation employed critical literature review and content discourse analysis of data and heritage management documents (with main focus on UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites documents and ICOMOS’ charters), questionnaires and site observation. The research mainly focused on the study of two World Heritage Sites: Liverpool Mercantile City and Historic Cairo, but also expanded to include other cultural heritage sites that are not on the World Heritage List, including sites from: Ningbo, Hangzhou, Zhouzhuang, Suzhou and Beijing cities in China, and Preston, Nottingham, Manchester, and London Cities in United Kingdom.
The paper proposes a process that identifies and evaluates fifteen cultural heritage significances, namely: architectural/monumental, historic, memorial/remembrance, social, spiritual/religious, artistic/inspirational, climatic/ecological, environmental/contextual, symbolic/iconic, panoramic/scenic, function-ability, scientific, technological, economic, and political significances. The proposed process relates the significance classification to five types of cultural heritage resources: object/collection, building/construction, heritage route, historic city, and urban/rural heritage landscapes.
The research then classifies the management objectives of cultural heritage sites into eight types: appropriateness, representativeness, narration, memory-recalling, engagement, uniqueness, balance, and movement. The different objectives thereafter are connected to the main overarching five-pillar significance interpretation strategy, UNCAP (Understanding people, Narrating the story, Conserving the spirit of place, Architectural intervention, and Preserving the built heritage).