C O N T E X T 1 0 7 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 8 9 Abstract as the theme appeared to be, it is central to today’s reinterpretation of the definitions of ‘heritage’. The conference considered the perception that conservation has a more central role to play in safeguarding and sustaining the continuity of the world’s immensely diverse tangible, intangible and natural heritage than if pigeonholed as a scientific specialism, focused on the preservation of immovable objects. As Francesco Bandarin, director of the UNESCOWorld Heritage Centre, said in one of his several interventions: ‘current measures may preserve the container, but what about the contents?’ Old Quebec City is a case in point. It attracts eight million visitors a year and its population has retracted to 5,000 inhabitants. Vieux Québec is jam-packed with bars and restaurants, souvenir shops, art and sculpture galleries. But where is the bread shop? The spirit of place has transmuted from The Fresque des Québécois traces 400 years of the city’s history. It was conceived and realised by the Cité de la Création, Lyon (see ‘Picking up the threads in Lyon’, Context 106, September 2008). that of a viable community inhabiting a historic quarter into an approximation of Disneyland, a model that is affecting historic cities around the world. The monuments, the supporting vernacular and the streetscapes may be preserved, but at what cost to the human experience and to our understanding of heritage? From the perspective of citizens, spirit of place is not about simplistic image-making through picture postcards and the marketing apparatus of tourism and commerce. It is to do with the complex, multi-faceted relationships between them as individuals, through their community and its everyday functionality to their physical environment. The theme ‘spirit of place’ inspired a multiplicity of parallel debates at this conference about the inextricable links between people and place, including the necessity to strike a balance between the demands of visitors and the needs of residents. The message was clear: hitherto, ICOMOS has prioritised places as physical objects; henceforth, it needs to focus at least as much on the people who inhabit these places. The International Youth Forum gave special force to the spirit of place theme. To these younger ICOMOS members, conservation and sustainability are synonymous. Engaging with local communities on a continuous basis is a prerequisite for successful conservation. It may have been a coincidence, but the elections that were held at the end of this general assembly resulted in a clean sweep of ICOMOS’s top officials: the president, secretarygeneral and treasurer. The theme may have been abstract, but the enthusiasm for spirit of place was unifying and contagious; as was the expectation that it will presage a revitalised ICOMOS, one that is more relevant, if not to ‘managing change’, maybe to ‘managing conservation in a changing world’. From the world stage to our own front door, does spirit of place feature sufficiently in the policies and practice of urban regeneration here in the UK? Would closer attention to defining and interpreting it not greatly assist in the case of cities such as Liverpool, still struggling to establish a distinctive identity for itself following the loss of its historical role as one of the world’s foremost port cities? Finding the spirit of place is just the beginning. Should not safeguarding and transmitting it be a core conservation activity for a sustainable world? The ‘Quebec City Declaration on the Preservation of the Spirit of Place’, adopted at this ICOMOS General Assembly, may be accessed at: http://www. icomos.org/ The 17th ICOMOS General Assembly and Scientific Symposium is due to take place in Iran (Tehran or Esfahan) in autumn 2011. Dennis Rodwell, an architect-planner, is a cultural heritage consultant.
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