Planned Conservation and Local Development Process: the Key Role of Intellectual Capital Stefano Della Torre Inauguration UNESCO Chair on Preventive Conservation, Maintenance and Monitoring of Monuments and Sites, Leuven, March 2009

Prof. Stefano Della Torre Glossary Planned conservation Prevention, monitoring, maintenance, but also planning. We try to keep together, maybe to merge, a top-down approach (prevention of territorial risks, such as floods, quakes, abandon…) and a bottom-up approach (everyday behaviours of stakeholders) Intellectual capital The term comes from management world, and it means something related to intangible assets of firms operating in knowledge economy. Some Author applies the term also to organisations operating in cultural field. Better than “human capital” in my perspective, because my aim is to stress the need for learning in planned conservation process. That is, to stress the role of intangibles as indicators of economic relevance of Heritage. Local development Impacts and challenges of globalization are to be found at local and regional level: Culture is the tool to face challenges and to catch opportunities. The most relevant perspective in Economy of Culture is not built up by income and turnovers, but by giving Culture and Heritage the right place in development processes.

Prof. Stefano Della Torre S. Gimignano, Italy: the way Heritage can be misused Tourism pressure, kitsch, gentrification, betrayal of educational purposes… Local development or troubles?

Prof. Stefano Della Torre Schönbrunn, Austria: how Heritage can be exploited in a sustainable way Marketing innovation, careful design, research, networking, planning…

Prof. Stefano Della Torre The differences The difference is that in S. Gimignano the process produces income but fails in producing an improvement of the intangible assets of the town, while in Schönbrunn there is a policy which works upgrading the intellectual capital of the organization. But our focus in not on marketing policies, it is on policies dealing directly with Built Cultural Heritage. Which BCH policy yields more benefits for local development? Which are the differences between restoration/event and conservation/process from an economic viewpoint?

Prof. Stefano Della Torre Investments in Built Cultural Heritage We know that a lot of money is spent every year in interventions on listed buildings (more than € ,00 every year in Lombardy in the last three years, at least 3 billions per year in Italy) Most of these works are intended to reuse buildings making them more beautiful (frescoes more colorful, facades more shining…), in order to make them attractive for tourists. These works can be carried out by ordinary enterprises, without any commitment to “learn” or to improve their skills. By this way, little intellectual capital is created, and the region gets a very weak contribution to a sustainable development. There is even the risk of “congestion” (remind S. Gimignano, or Venice).

Prof. Stefano Della Torre From Restoration to Planned Conservation “Preventive conservation and monitoring” stress some themes, like: -Care -Knowledge -Understanding -Technologies -Information technology -Long-term vision -Integration -Cooperation at regional level -Endorsement by the people…

Prof. Stefano Della Torre From Restoration to Planned Conservation “Preventive conservation and monitoring” stress some themes, like: -Care -Knowledge -Understanding -Technologies -Information technology -Long-term vision -Integration -Cooperation at regional level -Endorsement by the people… Planned Conservation implies daily care by users, by managers, by conservers and restorer, by craftsmen… care means high quality in any phase of the process

Prof. Stefano Della Torre From Restoration to Planned Conservation “Preventive conservation and monitoring” stress some themes, like: -Care -Knowledge -Understanding -Technologies -Information technology -Long-term vision -Integration -Cooperation at regional level -Endorsement by the people… Knowledge goes beyond information, it is the way data are given structure, sense and meaning. Planned conservation is a circular process pivoting around growing knowledge

Prof. Stefano Della Torre From Restoration to Planned Conservation “Preventive conservation and monitoring” stress some themes, like: -Care -Knowledge -Understanding -Technologies -Information technology -Long-term vision -Integration -Cooperation at regional level -Endorsement by the people… Planned conservation requires a long and quiet dialogue with the monument, so that refers less to the sense of sight, and more to listening, and understanding peculiarities

Prof. Stefano Della Torre From Restoration to Planned Conservation “Preventive conservation and monitoring” stress some themes, like: -Care -Knowledge -Understanding -Technologies -Information technology -Long-term vision -Integration -Cooperation at regional level -Endorsement by the people… Planned Conservation means monitoring and maintenance, so that there is a lot to do with new and traditional techniques

Prof. Stefano Della Torre From Restoration to Planned Conservation “Preventive conservation and monitoring” stress some themes, like: -Care -Knowledge -Understanding -Technologies -Information technology -Long-term vision -Integration -Cooperation at regional level -Endorsement by the people… Planning requires data filing and data management: information technologies are of crucial importance to make some targets feasible

Prof. Stefano Della Torre From Restoration to Planned Conservation “Preventive conservation and monitoring” stress some themes, like: -Care -Knowledge -Understanding -Technologies -Information technology -Long-term vision -Integration -Cooperation at regional level -Endorsement by the people… Long-term vision, typical of a PRECOMOS attitude, is needed to handle topics like sustainability

Prof. Stefano Della Torre From Restoration to Planned Conservation “Preventive conservation and monitoring” stress some themes, like: -Care -Knowledge -Understanding -Technologies -Information technology -Long-term vision -Integration -Cooperation at regional level -Endorsement by the people… Planned conservation requires a wide committment to integrate resouces, rules, attitudes… The concept of “integrated conservation” issued in 1975 in the Amsterdam Declaration is a basic requirement to make preventive conservation happen

Prof. Stefano Della Torre From Restoration to Planned Conservation “Preventive conservation and monitoring” stress some themes, like: -Care -Knowledge -Understanding -Technologies -Information technology -Long-term vision -Integration -Cooperation at regional level -Endorsement by the people… Conservation policies in general are more effective when they refer to a well defined territory, a “region” where it is possible to manage integration (e.g. Val de Loire)

Prof. Stefano Della Torre From Restoration to Planned Conservation “Preventive conservation and monitoring” stress some themes, like: -Care -Knowledge -Understanding -Technologies -Information technology -Long-term vision -Integration -Cooperation at regional level -Endorsement by the people Last but not least at all: if you want to change attitudes, towards preventive conservation, the first target to hit is getting people involved

Prof. Stefano Della Torre Learning and unlearning Inspection and maintenance require a very good knowledge of old practices and crafts But planned conservation is very far from restoration and remaking Therefore it is to be carefully discussed if planned conservation means to keep alive traditional crafts, or to introduce new technologies.

Prof. Stefano Della Torre Learning and unlearning - Keeping alive what still lives - Unlearning ways of vitiating traditional crafts (of betraying history) - Learning new technologies and new processes - Learning from traditional practices and crafts - Learning to learn and to unlearn

Prof. Stefano Della Torre Keeping alive what still lives Where traditional practices are still alive, they include maintenance. In general, people have not only skills required to produce things, but also to maintain them, by means of activities which are necessary because of scarcity of resources. A technique is living when it is understood and practiced as a whole (a matter of doing, but also of mental attitude, and of economic coherence)

Prof. Stefano Della Torre Unlearning ways of vitiating traditional crafts (of betraying history) “Traditional” stonecutting??? Reconstruction of George Washington’s barn: for which education??? To History of to Fiction???

Prof. Stefano Della Torre Unlearning ways of vitiating traditional crafts (of betraying authenticity) Declaration of San Antonio, 1996: “… we emphasize that only the historic fabric is authentic, and interpretations achieved through restoration are not; they can only authentically represent the meaning of a site as understood in a given moment.” When an old technique is revived only for production (or re-production), within a modern framework (mentality, materials supply, Gantt diagrams…) there can be no authenticity Preventive conservation aims to preserve historic fabric avoiding or minimizing restorations. It requires care, knowledge and understanding, that is questioning and rethinking even those meanings which are usually accepted. Therefore it is a way to debate and to unlearn. UNLEARNING IS FUNDAMENTAL TO DEVELOPMENT

Prof. Stefano Della Torre Learning new technologies and new processes New techniques enable to maintain even weak stones in polluted environment New processes enable to prevent decay, or to perform early detection in order to minimize damage PLANNED CONSERVATION REQUIRES CONTINUOUS EDUCATION

Prof. Stefano Della Torre Learning from traditional practices and crafts Historic natural ventilation system in the Hofburg and inspired project in Schönbrunn Castle (Käferhaus 2007)

Prof. Stefano Della Torre Learning to learn and to unlearn From Heritage sector to economic chains: some ways of modelling this step are more or less popular: -Model A: modelling an alliance between Heritage and tourism -Model B: modelling a productive chain strictly related to Heritage activities (cultural enterprises: restorers, ICT operators, designers…) -Model C: modelling mechanisms of cross-fertilization among different chains, so that attitude to “learn and unlearn” (to produce innovation), born in cultural sectors, stimulates society and enables innovation also in other productive chains (“learning region”, Florida 1995).

Prof. Stefano Della Torre Extraordinary interventions of heritage enhancement Events The trivial model Economic growth (mainly by tourism)

Prof. Stefano Della Torre Planned conservation and heritage enhancement Economic growth (also tourism, but mainly other local assets) Resources for services and for care of heritage Quality, education, networking, scientific research… Cross-fertilization, attitude to innovation… Growth of intellectual capital The advanced model

Prof. Stefano Della Torre Economics and Culture “Culture is assuming an increasingly strategic role for the definition of a new competitive context in the post-industrial society … … in the post-industrial economies, … culture tends to become the basic platform for the construction of the individual and societal capability building for the production and circulation of high intangible value added that distinguish the newest local development models” (Pier Luigi Sacco, “Culture-led Urban Development Processes: Theory and Policy, ESA 2007, Luneburg).

Prof. Stefano Della Torre Conclusions Therefore, Planned Conservation (more than traditional restoration) could have a strong impact on intellectual capital. Planned Conservation is the main way to make the investment on built cultural heritage more effective for a local development coherent with knowledge economy models.