Who essentialises the vernacular? Essentialising attributions of vernacularity within a nation-state, as also those of Orientalism at the international level, may represent both co-optation and marginalisation of the subaltern by political or expert authorities. It may also represent an act of resistance, resilience, or ‘subversive archaism’ against such forces. Essentialisation is always a social process – often a speech act (heritage designation offers a pertinent example) or its architectural equivalent. Using examples mostly from Greece and Thailand– both countries with an ambiguous relationship with European colonialism – we can connect the real dangers and potential benefits of designating specific buildings as vernacular with the similar ambiguities inherent in the concept of ‘local knowledge’. It is only by stripping vernacularity of its derogatory implications and by accepting the common human capacities realised in all architecture that we can confront the inequalities often generated by the selective attribution of vernacularity to rural and marginalised populations and trace these inequalities to their European colonial sources.
Balinese temple restoration is commonly interpreted through symbolism, belief, and architectural tradition, yet such readings leave how ritual regulates material action insufficiently examined. This article reconceptualises ritual as a regulatory technology: a procedural infrastructure that authorises intervention, defines thresholds of acceptable change, and structures material circulation within living heritage. Drawing on qualitative interpretive research across three temple restoration contexts in Bali, this study integrates observations of ritual sequences, interviews with undagi and religious authorities, and process analysis of decision-making pathways. The findings show that conservation is oriented less towards stabilising fabric than towards maintaining legitimacy. Reuse, selective replacement, dismantling, and ritual deposition become possible only after passing through recognised authorisation gates. If change is the norm rather than the exception, conservation theory must move away from paradigms centred on arresting alteration and instead examine infrastructures that make transformation culturally acceptable. Circularity, therefore, is not engineered through optimisation but produced through cosmological order, distributed authority, and moral accountability. This article argues that if conservation is to engage seriously with living heritage, analytical attention must shift from controlling change to understanding how change becomes legitimate. In this view, conservation concerns not how transformation is prevented but how it is socially organised, authorised, and remembered.
Abstract Socialist Built Heritage (SBH) represents a crucial part of China’s modern urban memory, embodying the historical legacy and ideological aspirations of the socialist construction era. Yet, amid rapid urbanisation, SBH faces growing threats from redevelopment and policy neglect. Taking Beijing as a case study, this paper establishes a database of SBH built between 1915 and 1978 and employs Geographic Information System (GIS) spatial analysis combined with the Geodetector model to examine its spatial distribution, protection disparities, and driving mechanisms. Results show that: (1) the spatial pattern of SBH exhibits both historical path dependence and typological differentiation, which to some extent reflect the evolutionary trajectory of socialist revolution and construction in Beijing; (2) SBH protection demonstrates significant structural imbalance and typological bias, with central districts exhibiting high heritage density but low protection rates, revealing the tension between urban growth and heritage conservation; (3) multidimensional driving mechanisms jointly shape the spatial disparities in SBH protection, among which socioeconomic, policy, and sociocultural factors are the primary drivers of spatial variation in protection rates. The study highlights the institutional constraints of SBH preservation within the urban growth framework and provides quantitative evidence to inform more balanced, resilience-oriented heritage conservation strategies.
Abstract Urban conservation in Hungary has a relatively long tradition of codified protection policies. Since the 1960s, national ‘ areas of monument significance’ have been the primary tool for safeguarding the urban built environment. By the 1970s, however, we can trace a significant shift marked by three salient innovations: the extension of the protection regime, the systematic assessment of ‘historic neighbourhoods’, and the implementation of new planning methodologies. These innovations did not vanish at the end of the political turn but informed the post-socialist years. Against this background, this article traces the rise and impact of innovations from the 1970s to the 1990s, considering the political turn of 1989 not as a breaking point but as a moment of ongoing heritage transitions. Alluding to dynamics outside the well-studied case of the Hungarian capital, the analysis draws on the example of regional cities. In terms of sources, the research is based on articles published in specialised journals, as well as archival documents which can help to reassess recent developments in urban conservation in Hungary.
Abstract This paper develops a framework for the identification of biocultural indicators of biodiversity in cultural landscapes. To combat the persisting separation and dualistic conceptualisation of nature and culture in the heritage field, the framework views landscapes as dynamic assemblages of human and non-human actors. This highlights the significance of biocultural practices as indicators of how biodiversity emerges through the same human–environment relationships that give rise to both heritage and landscape over time. The proposed framework consists of four layers: landscape assemblage, key species, socio-ecological relationships, and the analytical output of biocultural indicator relationships. It is applied to two contrasting case study sites: the Alhambra-Generalife-Albaicín in Spain and Connemara in Ireland. Describing the different scales, ecologies, and spiritual-cultural beliefs present within the sites illustrates how biodiversity is sustained through long-standing practices in both landscapes, supported by traditional knowledge systems and environmental relationships that go beyond the nature/culture binary. Within the Alhambra-Generalife-Albaicín, historic hydrological engineering, symbolic planting, and sensory-spatial design imbued with Islamic environmental ethics shape the emergence of biodiversity. In Connemara, low-intensity farming, seasonal rhythms, and local sense of place maintain semi-natural habitats and foster biodiversity through long-standing land-use practices. Through comparative analysis, biocultural indicators allow the agency of human and non-human actors within these sites to become legible. The framework offers a flexible, interdisciplinary tool to recognise landscapes as biocultural and thus as shaped by time, use, ecology, and meaning. It amplifies the biocultural connection between biodiversity, landscape, and people, aiming to contribute to a more inclusive, context-sensitive approach to sustainable and resilient heritage management.
