Down Memory Lane

Yes, it was a year ago that the UNESCO delegation visited our fine city, in this weeks Guardian there is an article looking at Bath and her struggle to keep her outstanding universal values in the face of the onslaught of inappropriate development. Article here

The following is from the piece on Edinburgh

Dresden proves that Unesco has teeth; the city's loss of status may well affect tourist revenue and inward investment. And this year, a Unesco report on Edinburgh (its Old and New Towns have heritage status), has prompted the collapse of two new developments: a 17-storey hotel, and Caltongate, a complex incorporating a hotel, conference centre, 200 flats and offices, which would have entailed the demolition of listed buildings. True, the recession has played a part, too: the developer for Caltongate, Mountgrange Capital, has gone into receivership. But if the development has been knocked on the head, Unesco has played its part.

BBC piece here from March 2009 Caltongate Developers in administration

What is A World Heritage Site?

Well, someone has been doing their homework!

The Big Question:

What is a World Heritage Site, and does the accolade make a difference?
By Paul Vallely The Independent Friday, 7 November 2008

Why are we asking this now?

A United Nations team is about to visit Bath to decide whether the city still deserves the accolade of a World Heritage Site. There are 28 such sites in Britain but Bath is the only entire city to be listed.

But the heritage police are worried. They originally called Bath "a city that is harmonious and logical, in concord with its natural environment and extremely beautiful". But now they fear this might be spoiled by a new development to which the city council's planning committee has given outline permission. It will add 2,200 houses with shops, a school and a park right next to the River Avon. Some of the buildings are nine storeys high.

Enthusiasts for the scheme attack those who would keep Bath as "a city in aspic" and worry that the whole project may be at risk if the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), which grants world heritage status, disapproves.

What kind of places are given the accolade?

Anything from a city to an individual building, monument, area, forest, mountain, desert or lake. There are currently 878 world heritage sites which include 678 listed for cultural reasons and 174 lauded as wonders of nature. These include the Great Barrier Reef, the Serengeti Desert, the Pyramids of Giza, the Statue of Liberty, the Great Wall of China, Mount Kenya, Edinburgh's Old and New Towns, Hadrian's Wall, Stonehenge, Memphis and its Necropolis, Persepolis, the Palace of Westminster, the centre of St Petersburg, the Banaue rice terraces in the Philippines and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station in Mumbai. The country with the biggest number of sites is Italy, which has 43.

Great Barrier Reef

How did the idea begin?

In 1954, the desert valley containing the twin Abu Simbel temples – which were carved out of a mountainside in southern Egypt in the 13th century BC on the orders of the Pharaoh Ramesses II – were about to be flooded by the building of the Aswan Dam. Frustrated by the Egyptian government's lack of action to protect the ancient buildings, Unesco launched a worldwide campaign that saved the temples by relocating them to higher ground at a cost of $80m, half of it collected from 50 countries.
The project was such a success that Unesco campaigns followed to save Venice and the ruins of one of the world's earliest urban settlements, Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan's Indus Valley, as well as the largest Buddhist structure in existence, the Borobodur temple compounds in Java, Indonesia.

Who decides whether heritage status is granted?

The Unesco World Heritage Committee, which is elected by nation states every four years. It meets once a year to choose the world's natural or human-made wonders in the greatest need of protection. Any country is eligible to send in a list of nominees for protection.
This year, the committee met in Quebec City, Canada, and added an extra 27 places across the globe to its list of "endangered species". Among them were more than 100 monumental tombs at Al-Hijr in Saudi Arabia, built by the Nabataean people between the first century BC and AD100. Another was the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Mexico, where one billion butterflies overwinter each year. The committee also added the island of Surtsey, which appeared 20 miles south of Iceland as a result of volcanic eruptions between 1963 and 1967, and is a pristine natural laboratory for the study of plant and animal colonisation.

What are the criteria for inclusion in the list?

Each site must meet at least one of 10 criteria. They must represent a "masterpiece of human creative genius", be "an important interchange of human values" or "bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to civilisation" past or present. Or they can be an outstanding example of a type of building or settlement which illustrates a significant stage in human history. They can "contain superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance", or be outstanding examples of major stages of Earth's history or ecological and biological processes in evolution. Sites can also house threatened species "of outstanding universal value".

How political is the choice?

Well, just nine per cent of the world heritage sites are in Africa and seven per cent in Arab countries, compared with 50 per cent in Europe and North America. This does suggest a certain cultural bias, but there are other political considerations. The US, whose government saw Unesco as a stalking horse for Communist and Third World countries to attack the West throughout the 1980s and 1990s, has refused to propose any new heritage sites since 1995. In that year, plans to open a gold mine near Yellowstone Park in Wyoming got the area placed on Unesco's "world heritage in danger" list. Conservatives in Washington decided that the scheme was an undercover attempt to subvert America's rights to govern itself and to destroy the fabric of US sovereignty.

Have there been any other controversies surrounding the scheme?

Pressure groups use world heritage status as a lever in political battles. In Australia, a group of Aborigines teamed up with environmentalists in a dispute over a uranium mine in the middle of the Kakadu National Park, a World Heritage Site which is home to hundreds of species of wildlife and is one of the country's oldest places of human occupation, dating back 60,000 years. Unesco called on ministers in Canberra to put a stop to the mining project, but the government hit backing, saying Unesco's report contained errors of fact, law, science and logic.
There was a similar row over a controversial hydroelectric dam project in La Amistad International Park, a world heritage-designated site which straddles Panama and Costa Rica and is Central America's largest and most diverse virgin rainforest.

What are the benefits?

Listed places receive extra media attention and tourists. That brings extra money in addition to cash from Unesco's preservation fund, though only developing countries can apply for the grants. Britain contributes £130,000 to the fund every year but gets nothing back, although world heritage status can attract extra funding from the national lottery and the private sector.
Publicity can help. Two 150ft statues of Buddha carved into a mountain in the Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan in the 6th century, and which were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001, have received more than $4m from Unesco to help with the re-sculpting of the damaged stones.

And the disadvantages?

Listed places receive extra media attention and tourists. The higher profile that listing brings can draw an influx of visitors that poorer countries cannot handle. Fore example, the Angkor Wat temples in Cambodia, the Galapagos Islands and Machu Picchu in Peru have all seen massive increases in tourism. Sometimes listing does more harm than good and upsets the delicate balance between promoting places and preserving them.

Does it help to have World Heritage status?
Yes...
* It brings extra funds to poor countries to help conserve places of universal value
* It draws attention to the world's most neglected treasures and places of historic interest or natural beauty
* It can save places from total destruction by natural or human forces

No...
* It brings in floods of extra tourists whose footprint can do more harm than good
* It can have the effect of preserving a living place in aspic and stifling innovation
* It can undermine a country's right to make decisions about its own heritage
Related Articles
Development puts Bath's UN heritage status at risk

Well its happening elsewhere, the blatent disregard for having World Heritage Status. The beautiful city of Bath is under threat of losing their status, at the hands of Property Developers Crest Nicolson whose PR firm appears to be none other than infamous PPS who are the spindoctors for Caltongate Developers, Mountgrange see PPSClientsRead the Icomosobjection to the Bath plans. It all sounds depressingly familiar doesn`t it? Unesco are the body responsible for World Heritage Sites. bathpreservationtrust and bathheritagewatchdog are doing their best to protect their citys` heritage.Here its the EdinburghWorldHeritageTrust and the CockburnAssociation along with concerned citizens.

Lesson no.2 in World Heritage Status

Today the UNESCO delegation are in the city of Bath BBC News and the lesson for all of us here in Edinburgh today is looking at what makes Edinburgh worthy of her World Heritage Status.

The World Heritage Committee ,

1. Having examined Documents WHC-08/32.COM/8B.Add and WHC- 08/32.COM/INF.8B1.Add,

2. Adopts the following Statement of Significance for the Old and New Towns of Edinburgh, United Kingdom:

Edinburgh has Outstanding Universal Values (OUVs) for the following reasons-

1. The remarkable juxtaposition of two clearly articulated urban planning phenomena. The contrast between the organic medieval Old Town and the planned Georgian New Town provides a clarity of urban structure unrivalled in Europe. The juxtaposition of these two distinctive townscapes, each of exceptional historic and architectural interest, which are linked across the landscape divide, the "great area" of Sir Walter Scott's Waverley Valley, by the urban viaduct, North Bridge, and by the Mound, creates the outstanding urban landscape.

2. The Old Town stretches along a high ridge from the Castle on its dramatically situated rock down to the Palace of Holyrood. Its form reflects the burgage plots of the Canongate, founded as an "abbatial burgh" dependent on the Abbey of Holyrood, and the national tradition of building tall on the narrow "tofts" or plots separated by lanes or "closes" which created some of the world's tallest buildings of their age, the dramatic, robust, and distinctive tenement buildings. It contains many 16th and 17th century merchants' and nobles' houses such as the early 17th century restored mansion house of Gladstone's Land which rises to six storeys, and important early public buildings such as the Canongate Tolbooth and St Giles Cathedral.

3. The Old Town is characterized by the survival of the little-altered medieval "fishbone" street pattern of narrow closes, wynds, and courts leading off the spine formed by the High Street, the broadest, longest street in the Old Town, with a sense of enclosed space derived from its width, the height of the buildings lining it, and the small scale of any breaks between them.

4. The New Town, constructed between 1767 and 1890 as a collection of seven new towns on the glacial plain to the north of the Old Town, is framed and articulated by an uncommonly high concentration of planned ensembles of ashlar-faced, world-class, neo-classical buildings, associated with renowned architects, including John and Robert Adam, Sir William Chambers, and William Playfair. Contained and integrated with the townscape are gardens, designed to take full advantage of the topography, while forming an extensive system of private and public open spaces. The New Town is integrated with large green spaces. It covers a very large area, is consistent to an unrivalled degree, and survives virtually intact.

5. Some of the finest public and commercial monuments of the New-classical revival in Europe survive in the city, reflecting its continuing status as the capital of Scotland since 1437, and a major centre of thought and learning in the 18th century Age of Enlightenment, with its close cultural and political links with mainland Europe.

6. The successive planned extensions from the first New Town, and the high quality of the architecture, set standards for Scotland and beyond, and exerted a major influence on the development of urban architecture and town planning throughout Europe.

7. The dramatic topography of the Old Town combined with the planned alignments of key buildings in both the Old and the New Town, results in spectacular views and panoramas and an iconic skyline.

8. The renewal and revival of the Old Town in the late 19th century, and the adaptation of the distinctive Baronial style of building for use in an urban environment, influenced the development of conservation policies for urban environments.

9. Edinburgh retains most of its significant buildings and spaces in better condition than most other historic cities of comparable value.

The property was inscribed under the following criteria:

Criteria (ii) Exhibit an important interchange of human values, over a span of time....on developments in architecture....monumental arts, town planning or landscape design.

The successive planned expansions of the New Town, and the high quality of its architecture, set standards for Scotland and beyond, and exerted a major influence on the development of urban architecture and town planning throughout Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Criterion (iv)Be an outstanding example of a type of building or architectural ensemble whcih illustrates a significant stage in human history.

: The Old and New Towns together form a dramatic reflection of significant changes in European urban planning, from the inward-looking, defensive, wall medieval city of royal palaces, abbeys, and organically developed small burgage plots in the Old Town, through the expansive format Enlightenment planning of the 18th and 19th centuries in the New Town, to the 19th century rediscovery and revival of the Old Town with its adaptation of a distinctive Baronial style of architecture in an urban setting.

3. Recommends that assessment for statements of authenticity and integrity / statements of protection and management should be postponed to the 33rd session of the World Heritage Committee (2009) awaiting adoption of a methodology and an agreed format for Statements of Outstanding Universal Value for inscribed properties.

See More on UNESCO website.


Read what ICOMOS UK thinks the risks are from Caltongate to the OUVs of the World Heritage Site in Edinburgh

Bath and Edinburgh At Risk

The issue of whether Bath should be stripped of its coveted World Heritage status because of the controversial Western Riverside development is to be scrutinised by conservation experts from across the globe.

The United Nations' World Heritage Committee will meet in Quebec, Canada, in July ? and the question of Bath's status is high on the agenda. The committee will decide whether Bath should be formally placed on its World Heritage 'in danger' list because of the Western Riverside scheme.
The 43-acre development along the Avon will feature residential housing blocks, which objectors say will spoil the city's skyline. World Heritage Status brings huge kudos to the cities and locations which hold it.
To lose it would be a sharp blow to Bath's reputation as a world-leading tourism destination. Full Article Here
See more here on Bath

Edinburgh is also at risk of losing her World Heritage Status because of the proposed Caltongate scheme.

"ICOMOS-UK considers that the Caltongate project should have been referred to the UNESCO World Heritage Centre.

Furthermore we consider that it would be appropriate for the UNESCO World Heritage Committee to consider these proposals. However, as quoted above, such notification should take place before any approval is given.

If the proposals are referred to the World Heritage Centre, then they might be considered by the World Heritage Committee at its next session in Quebec in July 2008. The Committee would then have the option to ask for a joint UNESCO WH Centre/ICOMOS Mission to consider the project and the Mission’s report would be presented to the Committee. If they were concerned, the Committee could press for changes to be made to the project or they have the option to consider putting the site on the List of World Heritage in Danger until such time as the threats could be removed." February 2008 6th this is taken from ICOMOS On Caltongate

What You Can Do To Help

Prince Charles Says NO to Caltongate

5 days to go until planning decision on Caltongate http://www.eh8.org.uk/

Yesterday Prince Charles addressed a conference of architects and planners at St James’s Palace, some of what he said -

"Thus, in chasing the corporate tenant or the buy-to-let investor, we may not only be destroying our heritage, but killing the goose that lays the golden egg for we will destroy what makes our cities and towns so attractive to tourists in the process."

"There is a very real and urgent risk looming over us that in the drive to make historic cities like London and Edinburgh “world cities” in the commercial sense, we simply make them more like every other city in the world and in so doing dishonour and discredit their status, character and local distinctiveness.

In “A Vision of Britain,” I suggested that the impact of new buildings could be softened by an acceptance of the existing street rhythms and plot sizes and that the buildings in a city such as London, Edinburgh or even Bath or Ealing are the individual brushstrokes of a grand composition, which works because all the participants understood the basic rules and “grammar,” with harmony being the pleasing result.

This lesson is, I believe, still as relevant today as it was in the Enlightenment, when builders sought to remake their cities to compete on a new stage. For the past sixty years or so we have been conducting an experiment in social and environmental engineering that has gone disastrously wrong."

Corporate and residential towers are being proposed across London, and overshadowing World Heritage sites from Edinburgh to Bath – this audience will not need reminding of the fact that the World Heritage status of sites such as Edinburgh’s old city, the Tower of London and Westminster have all been challenged by U.N.E.S.C.O. due to new construction in recent years. And so they should be, as there is no point at all in having a World Heritage site unless it retains its unique integrity. There are, after all, other areas where such tall buildings could be accommodated within their own context.

"For some unaccountable reason we seem to be determined to vandalise these few remaining sites which retain the kind of human scale and timeless character that so attract people to them."

He said: 'We should surely be asking whether it is a natural prerequisite of "being modern" to display bad manners? Is it "being modern", for instance to vandalise the few remaining relatively unspoilt, beautiful areas of our cities, any more than it would be "modern" to mug defenceless elderly people? Can it not be modern to do unto others as you would have them do to you?'

See fullspeechhere

Back in May 2006 A Speech Prince Charles made at The World Heritage Cities Conference

EdinburghSpeech where he said - To achieve the delivery of these principles, an essential factor is, if at all possible, to allow those who will live in the community an opportunity to participate in the planning process for, as Patrick Geddes said, "town planning. . .must be folk-planning.".

The fightback begins read here what Malcolm Fraser he of the proposed carbuncle at Caltongate to the left - on carbuncles...

says about Prince Charles speech BDOnline

see articles Guardian

Times ArchitectsJournal

Read what one architect Chipperfield thinks, in an article The shame of British Architecture
“We are a country that values money and individualism. Architecture becomes glorified property development, not valued culture. Ten storeys? Try for 20. Squeeze in more bedrooms." Article

EdinburghLost

Edinburgh is a prosperous and expanding city, developed from a small community spawned on a narrow rock to become the Capital of Scotland. From its mean beginnings - 'wretched accommodation, no comfortable houses, no soft beds' visiting French knights complained in 1341 - it went on to attract some of the world's greatest architects to design and build and shape a unique city. But over the centuries many of those fine buildings have gone. Invasion and civil strife played their part. Some simply collapsed of old age and neglect, others were swept away in the 'improvements' of the nineteenth century. Yet more fell to the developers' swathe of destruction in the twentieth century. Few were immune as much of the medieval architectural history vanished in the Old Town; Georgian Squares were attacked; Princes Street ruined; old tenements razed in huge slum clearance drives, and once familiar and much loved buildings vanished. The changing pattern of industry, social habits, health service, housing and road systems all took their toll. Not even the city wall was immune. The buildings which stood in the way of what was deemed progress are the heritage of Lost Edinburgh., and its not slowing down.

World Heritage Sites at Risk

14 days to go until planning committee SaveOurOldTown

Below is the vision for Bath..its all gone a bit Caltongate!
Well its happening elsewhere, the blatent disregard for having World Heritage Status. The beautiful city of Bath is under threat of losing their status, at the hands of Property Developers
Crest Nicolson whose PR firm appears to be none other than infamous PPS who are the spindoctors for Caltongate Developers, Mountgrange see PPSClients

Read the Icomosobjection to the Bath plans. It all sounds depressingly familiar doesn`t it? Unesco are the body responsible for World Heritage Sites. bathpreservationtrust and bathheritagewatchdog are doing their best to protect their citys` heritage.

Here its the EdinburghWorldHeritageTrust and the CockburnAssociation along with concerned citizens.

Remember to come along to The Stop The Demolitions Meeting on Wednesday 30th January in Old Saint Pauls Church Hall, Jeffrey Street see mapanddirections Teas, coffees, information from 7pm, meeting starts 7.30pm read about the very busy successful lastmeeting