UNESCO: Identifying the ouv: multiple stories, multiple layers

1. IDENTIFYING THE OUV:
MULTIPLE STORIES, MULTIPLE LAYERS
CRISTINA IAMANDI
Consultant
UNESCO-CTL/WHC
WALLED CITIES, OPEN SOCIETIES
Šibenik, Croatia, 5 March 2018

2. OUV, SOUV and HUL
 What is OUV? What is SOUV?
 Linking OUV to Management and Protection
 How the Historic Urban Landscape approach may
help in identifying the OUV?
 Multiple layers, multiple stories

3. OUV
49. Outstanding Universal Value means cultural and/or natural
significance which is so exceptional as to transcend national boundaries
and to be of common importance for present and future generations of
all humanity. As such, the permanent protection of this heritage is of the
highest importance to the international community as a whole. The
Committee defines the criteria for the inscription of properties on the
World Heritage List.
78. To be deemed of Outstanding Universal Value, a property must also
meet the conditions of integrity and/or authenticity and must have an
adequate protection and management system to ensure its
safeguarding.

4. Para 51: At the time of inscription of a property on
the World Heritage List, the Committee
adopts a Statement of Outstanding
Universal Value which will be the key
reference for the future effective
protection and management of the
property.
The Statement of Outstanding Universal Value
first appeared in the 2005 version of the
Operational Guidelines
Statement of Outstanding Universal Value

5. SOUV - Content
STATEMENT OF OUV:
 Brief summary
• Summary of factual information
• Summary of qualities
 Criteria (values and attributes which manifest them)
 Integrity (all sites)
 Authenticity (criteria i-vi)
 Management and protection requirements necessary to maintain OUV
• Overall framework
• Specific long-term expectations

6. SOUV as a reference
 Why SOUV is important to the Committee:
• The Statement of Outstanding Universal Value shall be the basis
for the future protection and management of the property
(paragraph 155 of the Operational Guidelines)
 Statement of OUV is the main reference point for:
• Nomination Dossiers
• ICOMOS and IUCN Evaluations
• Committee Decisions
• Periodic Reporting
• Evaluations of State of Conservation
• In-Danger Listing
• Deletion from the World Heritage List

7. Linking OUV to Protection & Management
96. Protection and management of World Heritage properties should ensure
that their Outstanding Universal Value, including the conditions of integrity
and/or authenticity at the time of inscription, are sustained or enhanced
over time.
97. All properties inscribed on the World Heritage List must have adequate
long-term to ensure their safeguarding. legislative, regulatory, institutional
and/or traditional protection and management This protection should include
adequately delineated boundaries.
98. Legislative and regulatory measures at national and local levels should
assure the protection of the property from social, economic and other
pressures or changes that might negatively impact the Outstanding Universal
Value, including the integrity and/or authenticity of the property.

8. Using HUL in identifying OUV
Conventional versus HUL approach in
identifying values
The landscape approach to urban
management based on « layering »

9. What is the HUL approach?
Core to the HUL approach is a new understanding of the historic environment.
“The historic urban landscape is the urban area understood as the result of a historic
layering of cultural and natural values and attributes, extending beyond the notion
of ‘historic centre’ or ‘ensemble’ to include the broader urban context and its
geographical setting. This wider context includes notably the site’s topography,
geomorphology, hydrology and natural features, its built environment, both historic
and contemporary, its infrastructures above and below ground, its open spaces and
gardens, its land use patterns and spatial organization, perceptions and visual
relationships, as well as all other elements of the urban structure.
It also includes social and cultural practices and values, economic processes and the
intangible dimensions of heritage as related to diversity and identity.” (UNESCO, 2011)

10. What is the HUL approach?
 HUL is based on the recognition and
identification of a layering and interconnection
of
 natural and cultural,
 tangible and intangible,
 international and local values present in any city.
 These values should be taken as a point of
departure in the overall management and
development of the city.

11. Learning from HUL:
‘READING’ THE MULTIPLE LAYERS
 LAYERING: SYNCHONIC + DIACHRONIC DIMENSIONS
• All cities are the result of a gradual layering process
• Physical layers (stratigraphy)
• Role of archaeology in interpreting the layers of the
anthropic environment: a diachronic ‘reading’ through
time
• Archaeology and planning process
• Role of archaeology in construction of civic identity
and sense of place.

12. Chronology of
Typologies

13. Public and private
green areas

14. LES ELEMENTS DU PAYSAGE URBAIN

15. Learning from HUL:
‘READING’ THE MULTIPLE LAYERS
 TOPOGRAPHY, GEOMORPHOLOGY, HYDROLOGY AND NATURAL
FEATURES
• The layered built environments rests on the geological strata
formed during Earth’s history.
• The relationship between the built environment and geology is of
outmost importance for urban conservation, sustainable
development and city’s resilience.
• The geological setting determines the ways cities are built, their
morphology, building materials, building types, and the way they
adapted to the hydrological and ecological constraints.

16. Bordeaux:
Hydrographc network

17. Learning from HUL:
‘READING’ THE MULTIPLE LAYERS
URBAN MORPHOLOGY: STUDY OF CITY FORM AD
LAYERING
 Does not focus only on ‘monuments’, but on the urban fabric as
a whole.
 Recognises the local specificity of a urban fabric
 Considers the city as a process:
• change and stability in time
• diachrony and synchrony of the architectural type
 The history of the city is inscribed in its urban form

18. Learning from HUL:
‘READING’ THE MULTIPLE LAYERS
 THE SOCIAL DIMENSION OF THE CITY: ‘Intangible’ layers
• Intangible values as expression of identity: memories, narratives,
archives, written & iconographic documents, festivals,
commemoration, rituals, traditional knowledge.
• Planning and management structures as intangible values:
traditional planning methods & contemporary planning practice
based on the analysis of land ownership and tenure, economic
activities, infrastructure and services, financial aspects.
• How are intangible heritage values associated to planning and
management processes?

19. FORT COCHIN, India
Architectural types,
morphological units
The area is very
heteroclite in housing
types, from Kerala
vernacular to Portuguese,
Dutch and British colonial
and Gujarati shawl-type
and other Indien
typologies imported from
Tamil Nadu, Art Deco and
modernist buildings of
different epochs and
conditions.

20. Community Values
« Collage City »

21. Cultural diversity

24. Learning from HUL:
‘LISTENING’ TO THE MULTIPLE STORIES OF A PLACE
• Traditional event-driven history and historiography:
kings, wars…
• Ecole des Annales, Annales d'histoire économique et
sociale (1929): historiography based on social history -
Its contributors viewed events as less fundamental
than the mental frameworks that shaped decisions and
cultural practices (i.e. rural history)
• ‘Collective memory’ (Maurice Halbwachs, 1958),
‘Lieux de mémoire’ (Pierre Nora, 1984)
• Intangible heritage, cultural diversity, social history

25. TOOLS FOR VALUE IDENTIFICATION
 CULTURAL MAPPING: comprehensive surveys and
mapping of the city’s natural, cultural (tangible and
intangible) and human resources; inventories;
information databases.
 COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT and STAKEHOLDER
CONSULTATIONS to identify the values to be
protected for transmission to future generations and
to determine the attributes that carry these values.

26. Sharing stories,
identifying values
and attributes,
sharing visions

27. BORDEAUX: an unique urban landscape,
imbued with strong identities
• Historic Centre
• Surrounding neighborhoods (« La Ville en Pierre »)
• Wet docks, testimony of the harbour industrial activity
• Grand Parc quarter comprizing social housing and equipments
(applying updated approaches to urban planning)
• Mériadeck quarter that concentrates the administrative buildings,
residences and commerce
• La Bastide, late urbanisation, industrial and harbour facilities (vis-
à-vis of historic centre)
• La Garonne River

29. BORDEAUX, PORT OF THE MOON
World Heritage property, 2007 (ii, iv)

31. Cultural and Historic Ensemble of the Solovetsky Islands
World Heritage property (1992)

32. Solovetsky Big Island, aerial view
Criterion (iv):
The Solovetsky complex is an outstanding example of a monastic settlement in the
inhospitable environment of northern Europe, which admirably illustrates the faith,
tenacity and courage of late medieval religious communities. The subsequent history of the
monastery is graphically illustrated by the wealth of remains of all types that have survived.

33. Retrospective Statement of OUV (2017)
• Founded in the 1430s, the Solovetsky complex is an outstanding
example of the tenacity, courage and diligence of monks of the
Russian Orthodox Church in the inhospitable environment of
Northern Europe. The complex is unique in its integrity and
safeguarding of its religious, residential, domestic, defence and
waterside constructions, its road network and irrigation systems
of the Middle Ages harmoniously blended with the surrounding
natural and cultural landscapes as well as archeological sites that
reflect the ancient and medieval culture of the islands for six
thousand years.
• The Solovetsky complex represents all periods of the history of the
archipelago and the Russian North in general.

34. VALUES and ATTRIBUTES (2017)
• Religious architecture: monastery-fortress of 15th to the early 20th centuries,
churches, chapels, skits, a former monastic village of 16th to the early 20th
centuries, cells and hermitages of 16th to the early 20th centuries;
• Hydraulic and irrigation systems of the Middle Ages;
• Defence and waterside constructions;
• Monastic and pilgrimage road network;
• Archeological sites that reflect the ancient and medieval culture of the islands for
6.000 years: sacred sites and dozens of settlements of 6 to the first millennia BC;
• Groups of memorial constructions of the Solovetsky Special Prison Camp of 1923-
1939;
• The surrounding natural and cultural landscapes throughout the archipelago.

35. Religious architecture: the Monastic complex
 The Solovetsky historic and
cultural complex is the only large
set of monuments in northern
latitudes, built from local
boulders in combination with rare
brick and forge iron produced on
Solovki. The fortress is the only
Russian fortification complex
built with the use of large
boulders, which adds greatly to
its individuality.

38. Memorial values: the GULAG
• The Solovki is recognized
as the first and one of the
best known Soviet special
purpose camps of the
GULAG. The islands have
been used as a place of
exile since the 17th
century.

40. Nature, wilderness, archaeology
 The vast variety and uniqueness of the
Solovetsky monuments together with the
northern wilderness create a rare cultural and
natural synthesis.
 Archeological studies over the last 20 years have
identified some interesting new materials that
expand the cultural context of the property.

43. Traditional knowledge

44. THANK YOU.
c.iamandi@unesco.org
+33677728966