IIC Round Table: Between Home and History

In 2008 IIC launched the initiative Dialogues for the New Century, a
series of events that explore emerging issues in the modern world
and the relationship of those issues to the preservation of cultural
heritage <URL:http://www.iiconservation.org/dialogues>

The next Round Table in the series will be part of the IIC's
Istanbul Congress, 20-24 September 2010.

The Seed
Sakip Sabanci Museum
42 Sakip Sabanci Caddesi
Emirgan 34467, Istanbul
Tuesday, 21 September, 2010
19:00

'Between Home and History' will explore our complex desires to
improve and expand our surroundings while also recognizing our
essential need to remember and to preserve. Home is both a place and
a state of mind, a concept, an identity. It insinuates stability,
the long-term, and commitment. In the context of this discussion it
also suggests the value of tradition. A home can be a single room, a
grand historic palace, a neighbourhood, a city or a region. Home is
defined by personal connections, community interactions, and
personal or acquired histories and memories. It provides both
identity and continuity. But like memories the concept of home is
not static. It evolves and accommodates changes to the individual as
well as changes to the community and the surrounding environment
(natural or built).

History is also memory, which though having the appearance of
stability, also exists in flux as we reinterpret events, discover
new meanings, redefine moments and on occasion even invent the past.
If a place, however small or large, complex or simple has value,
both as a historic memory and as a home, how can those aspects that
imbue value be resolved to the benefit of both those who call the
place home and those who desire to preserve its past and present
characteristics without change?

When a neighbourhood, district or region of historic significance is
preserved, what are we preserving? Is our concern solely with the
material remains which serve as a memory prompt, as evidence of some
event, some moment or is there more? And when such a place is
populated, either by the very people who are part of its
significance or who settled there after a historic event, how can
these people, their community and its way of life, be incorporated
into a preservation approach? As pressures of development,
gentrification or regeneration--whether from outside the community
or from within--begin to challenge more established versions of how
and what will be preserved, dilemmas will emerge. Any compromises
and their impact must be explored since decisions made now are
linked to the future of heritage.

This Round Table will explore these and many other issues as the
panelists gather, with you, at the interface between preservation
and development of "living" historic districts, between home and
history.

Panelists include:

    David Lowenthal: a renowned author, historian and Professor
    Emeritus in the Department of Geography at University College
    London. Among his many academic achievements related to heritage
    preservation was the development of the ICOMOS/UNESCO World
    Heritage Sites Authenticity Criteria 1994-95. Dr. Lowenthal has
    written a large number of articles and books, including topics
    concerned with landscape tastes and perceptions, and the
    relationship between history and cultural heritage. He is the
    author of the seminal publication: The Past is a Foreign Country
    (Cambridge University press, 1985);

    Prof. Leyla Nezi is an anthropologist, oral historian and an
    Associate Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
    at Sabanci University, Istanbul. She received her undergraduate
    degree from Stanford University and her PhD from Cornell
    University. Her PhD dissertation focused on the settlement of
    Yoruk nomads in the Taurus mountains. In her recent work she
    uses oral history to analyze the relationship between history,
    memory and identity in Turkey. Her research includes an oral
    history of Tesvikiye, a neighborhood in Istanbul;

    Dr. Stephen Bond has recently conducted a training workshop on
    site management for UNESCO in the World Heritage city of Galle
    in Sri Lanka. Before starting his own consultancy firm, Dr. Bond
    was a partner of TFT Cultural Heritage in London, a large
    construction and consulting firm. He is a co-author of the
    acclaimed book Managing Built Heritage: The Role of Cultural
    Significance (Wiley-Blackwell, 2008);

    Prof. Dr Ayfer Bartu Candan is an anthropologist from Bogazici
    University, Istanbul. Professor Candan's areas of expertise
    include Urban Anthropology, Politics of History and Heritage,
    Contemporary Uses of the Past, Politics of Archaeology,
    Anthropology of Tourism, and Visual Anthropology. She received
    her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, in Social
    and Cultural Anthropology and has published widely on the
    analysis of heritage politics as well as aspects of presentation
    and preservation of archaeological sites such as Catalhoyuk.

    Dr. Francesco Siravo, an Italian architect specialized in town
    planning and historic preservation, received his professional
    degrees from the University of Rome, La Sapienza and specialized
    in historic preservation at the College of Europe, Bruges and
    Columbia University, New York. Since 1991 he has worked for the
    "Historic Cities Support Programme" of the Aga Khan Trust for
    Culture, Geneva, with projects in various Islamic cities,
    including Cairo, Lahore, Mopti (Mali), Mostar, Samarkand and
    Zanzibar. Prior to that he consulted for local municipalities as
    well as governmental and international organizations, including
    UNESCO, ICCROM and the World Bank. He has written widely on
    various architectural conservation and town planning subjects;

    Asli Kiyak Ingin graduated from Mimar Sinan University as an
    architect and then was granted a post-graduate diploma from
    Istanbul Technical University for developing a method for the
    analysis of formal and spatial structure of traditional cities.
    She is an architect, designer and activist with a specific
    interest in how state intervention in the urban fabric of a city
    affects some of the poorest residents. Her inspiration comes
    from the local spaces that are created by ordinary people and
    the spatial knowledge of different stakeholders in cities. Over
    the last four years she established the Sulukule Platform to
    protect the oldest settlement of Roma people in
    Istanbul--Sulukule--from demolition and has developed
    sustainable and participatory models for development.

The Round Table will also include an exclusive video interview with
the Nobel Prize winning author Orhan Pamuk

More information may be had at:

    <URL:http://www.iiconservation.org/congress>

and at

   <URL:http://www.iiconservation.org/dialogues>

Graham Voce
Executive Secretary
International Institute for Conservation
of Historic and Artistic Works (IIC)
6 Buckingham Street
London WC2N 6BA
UK
+44 20 7839 5975
Fax: +44 20 7976 1564


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 24:9
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