Intangible Heritage Aspects of Landscapes and the Choice of Legal Regime at the International Level

Ref.: 153
Key theme: 02 Functional integrity of historic urban landscapes
Date of reception: 12/11/2008

AUTHORS (*Main author)

LIXINSKI, Lucas * (Brazil) - European University Institute

ABSTRACT

The linkage between tangible and intangible cultural heritage has been analyzed by several scholars. More often than not, manifestations of cultural heritage contain elements of both of these areas, which are not in conflict or separation, but in a sort of symbiotic dialectics. While the intangible only receives expression by means of the tangible, the tangible only has meaning because of the intangible elements. This relationship has been explored in the context of cultural objects and the role of museums in the safeguard of tangible and intangible heritage. The purpose of this paper is to reframe this discussion in the specific context of historic urban landscapes. The protection of landscapes is an emerging area in cultural heritage law. The Council of Europe has adopted a pioneer instrument for the protection of landscapes, and landscapes have been recognized as protectable under the UNESCO World Heritage Convention system. However, this legal protection is by no means complete: the World Heritage Convention system, on the one hand, tends to protect the "monumental" in cultural heritage; and the Council of Europe Convention has a regional reach. Thus, it is important to look at other alternatives for protecting landscapes. In this sense, to inquire whether they can be characterized as intangible heritage, or if there are intangible elements in historic landscapes the protection of which can be sufficient to guarantee the protection of any given landscape as a whole is an important step, and the goal of this paper. I will analyze the general aspects of the relationship between intangible and tangible cultural heritage, and then apply this discussion to the specific context of urban historic landscapes. I will argue that landscapes as a particular type of cultural heritage cannot dispense with its intangible elements. The conceptual choice between looking at historic urban landscapes as tangible or intangible heritage has very concrete implications, as it leads to the choice of two different regimes. The World Heritage Convention (1972) is used for protecting tangible heritage. And the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003) protects "the cultural spaces" associated with cultural heritage, and thus landscapes, in many instances, belong to the definition of intangible heritage. The choice for one regime or the other requires that one decides what elements are more important to be protected from the start, but there are also other elements to be taken into account when making this decision. After looking at the different criteria for inscribing heritage either as tangible or intangible heritage, I will address in more detail the specific possibilities for the protection of landscapes within the framework for the protection of intangible cultural heritage.

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