Conservation of the Historic Urban Landscape within the Contemporary Architectural projects "A Case Study from the City of Irbid in Jordan"

Ref.: 22
Key theme: 01 Physical integrity of historic urban landscapes
Date of reception: 09/11/2008

AUTHORS (*Main author)

EL-KHALILI, Mohammed * (Jordan) - Hashemit University

ABSTRACT

Keywords: architectural heritage, contemporary environment, historical centers, urban development, threats, revival, conservation, rehabilitation, legislations, common character, comparative analysis.

Keywords: architectural heritage, contemporary environment, historical centers, urban development, threats, revival, conservation, rehabilitation, legislations, common character, comparative analysis.
All the countries worldwide are driving now more efforts toward the conservation of the historical centers and the revival of their role within the modern urban development from the fact that it contributes in the economical development and its socioeconomic benefits as a part of the community's identity and their importance in the inspiration of new ideas for shaping the bases of the new city as well as its historical character.

The international movement toward preserving the architectural heritage is now more urgent since the burst of modern needs combined with the erection of huge landmarks and structures within the cities has put the historical heritage in a shadowlike marginalized role which may cause them later to be dissolved within its contemporary surrounding environment, especially the vertical growth of this development, which destruct the visual context of the historical centers and put them in a situation to be considered as an obstacle for the development of the modern city.
In all over Jordan, the advent of new transformational aspects in urban development was highly observed during the last decades of the 20th and 21st centuries due to the demographic growth and development in all of the socioeconomic aspects.

All of these aspects caused to marginalize the importance of the cultural heritage as a part of the identity of the local community, what is needed now is the adoption of new trends, not any traditional trend, but creative and modern ones in order to manage, conserve, and protect our cultural heritage, however, nowadays the role of the historical town on socioeconomic development of small and medium cities in Mediterranean regions not possible without a policy of conservation and preservation which is insufficient alone without a sustainability efforts to channel the transformation so as to adapt the towns to the needs of their new population and new ways of life for the survival of the historical centers in their artistic, historical and environmental values. The main aspects of the historical town fabric ­ typology, property, and building conditions have been unchangeable, and their reintegration of the contemporary developments should be studied, guided and designed to prevent its destruction and decay as a result of its reflectance by the changes and development in modes of life for the local community.
It is worth saying that the common experiments of rehabilitation and revival of historical towns are being attempted in all countries, and in many of them the experiments have been stimulated or even rendered by the associative efforts of local communities, alone or in collaboration with governmental or non governmental partners. The process of rehabilitation and revival of historical towns should not be only for the prominent monuments but also for the modest urban fabric. The policy of conservation involves making interventions at various scales and levels of intensity; these are determined by the physical condition, causes of deterioration and anticipated future environment of the historical building under treatment.
I will talk in particular as a case study about the experience of the city of Irbid in Jordan in conserving the historical buildings of the center, explaining the main difficulties that the government faces in managing, revival, and conserving historical centers. At present the center suffers a state of abandonment, degradation and destruction. This process of total decay puts it in risk of total losses. There are two main causes of deterioration: first are human and natural causes, and second is of legal nature regarding all the historical and architectural heritage of Irbid and other cities in Jordan as well as the weakness in the conducted comprehensive urban plans to successfully implement the conservation demands.

But in this paper I tried to generate new ideas in dealing with this rich cultural heritage by studying and trying to reshape the relationship between the modern and old architectural heritage into sympathetic and symbiotic relationship. I will try to discuss the dangers threatening the center of Irbid as a Jordanian city in terms of the weakness of legislation at all governmental levels for the protection and conservation of Jordanian architectural heritage without any distinction. The main goal of the study is to premise comprehensive polices and strategies of conservation that must be adopted by the concerned authorities as a part of the whole socioeconomic development plan of the city in which appropriate understanding of the values contained in the Architectural and cultural heritage is highly needed.
Finally, the total actions that could be taken regarding to the architectural and cultural heritage will be in many procedures that leads at the end to re-engage this heritage within the daily life of the local community, in which, in my study I tried to create new standards of urban development in historical towns by respecting the architectural styles, character, and external aspects to create harmony between the old and the new. The direct effect of this symbiotic relationship between the new and the old will be clearly seen on the socioeconomic daily life of the community, municipal organizations, architects, town-planners and builders in which they will adopt such relationship with full respect and in their projects.

REFERENCES

Bernard M. Feilden and Jukka Jokilehto, ICCROM (1993). Management Guidelines for World Cultural Heritage Sites, Rome.
Cesari, C. (1982). Considerations on the problems of integrated conservation. Lecture notes, ICCROM course in Architecture Conservation.
Feilden, Sir Bernard M.(1982). Conservation of Historic Buildings. Technical Studies in the arts, Archaeology and Architecture series. London.
Fitch, J, M. (1990). Historic Preservation: Curatorial Management of the Built World. New York.
Jokilehto, J. (1999). A History of Architectural Conservation. Oxford.
Gill Chitty & David Baker, (1999) Managing Historic Sites and buildings. London.
Non published reports from:
The Municipality of Irbid, Planning office.
The Arar cultural House and The Dar al Saray