World Heritage Cities between Permanence and Change: International Construction of `Outstanding Universal Value´ and Local Perceptions at Old Rauma from the 1970s to the 2000s

Abstract

Lähes 200 kaupunkia eri puolilta maailmaa on hyväksytty UNESCOn maailmanperintöluetteloon. Väitöstutkimuksen kohteena on maailmanperintökaupunkeja koskeva kansainvälinen arvottamiskeskustelu 1970-luvulta nykypäivään. Paikallisen esimerkkitapauksen, suomalaisen Vanhan Rauman, kautta tutkimus pohtii myös, kuinka ja missä laajuudessa maailmanperinnön kaltainen ylätason abstrakti käsite on tullut osaksi kulttuuriperintöön liittyviä paikallisia määrittelyjä ja käytäntöjä.

Tutkimus tuo ilmi maailmanperintöajattelun merkittävän roolin osana 1960-luvulta lähtien voimistunutta kulttuuriperinnön globalisaatiota. Sen lisäksi, että maailmanperintökohteet ovat kansainvälisen matkailun avainkohteita, maailmanperintökomitea on viime vuosina ottanut aktiivisen osapuolen roolin useissa maailmanperintöalueita koskevissa paikallisissa hankkeissa (esim. siltahanke Dresdenin Elbe-joen laaksoon). Maailmanperinnön myötä kulttuuriperinnön arvottamisen ja hoidon käytännöt ovat yhdenmukaistuneet eri puolilla maailmaa, eivät vähiten tutkimuksessa analysoitujen kansainvälisten asiantuntijoiden laatimien kohdearviointien ansiosta.

Tutkimus osoittaa, kuinka maailmanperintökaupunkien moninaisten menneisyyksien ja arvottamisen pohja on vuosien saatossa merkittävällä tavalla laajentunut. Samalla tutkimus tekee näkyväksi arvottamiskäytäntöjen pysyvyyden, jopa pysähtyneisyyden. Keskeinen johtopäätös on, että maailmanperintökaupunkeja kuvataan pitkälti vakiintuneiden konventioiden mukaisesti ja vakiintuneisiin arvoihin nojaten, usein monumenttien ryhminä, harmonisina näkyminä ja pysähtyneinä, materiaalisina objekteina, tietyn prosessin lopputuloksina pikemmin kuin jatkuvina prosesseina. Maailmanperintösopimus kirjoitettiin länsimaisen ”kulttuuriperinnön auktorisoidun diskurssin” (Laurajane Smith, 2006) viitekehyksessä, ja sen toteutus on, tarkasteltujen kaupunkiesimerkkien valossa, pitkälti ollut samaisen diskurssin ohjaamaa. Vaihtoehtoisia tulkintoja korostavien ohjelmajulistusten ulottaminen retoriikkaa pidemmälle on ollut haastavaa.

Kansainvälisen arvottamisdiskurssin rinnalla tarkasteltuna Vanhan Rauman tapaus tekee näkyväksi kulttuuriperinnön prosessiluonteisuuden ja kiistanalaisuuden kaupunkipolitiikassa. Raumalla suunnitelmat rakentaa vähittäiskaupan suuryksikkö Vanhan Rauman maailmanperinnön suojavyöhykkeelle nousivat debatin kohteeksi vuosina 2004–2006. Huolimatta näkökannoista, joiden mukaan hanke oli maailmanperintöarvon vastainen, se toteutettiin. Kulttuuriperinnön globaalissa maailmassa paikallinen määrittelyvalta Vanhaan Raumaan nähden ei näytä oleellisesti kaventuneen.

Heritage is one of the key cultural, social and political phenomena of our late-modern world, and has been subject to accelerating globalization since the 1960s. This research illustrates the key role played by the 1972 UNESCO World Heritage Convention as part of the popular and globalized heritage concern. The implementation of the Convention steers the global heritage agenda by constantly defining and redefining what constitutes heritage and heritage values and by offering the highest-level forum for heritage professionalism. It has contributed to the world-wide unification of heritage valuation and management practices. The World Heritage designation has become a pronounced means for conferring distinctive identities upon places, and for distinguishing between cities vis-à-vis other cities in the global competition between regions and states.

This research explores the time-bound and multi-layered construction of outstanding universal value, the key concept for the implementation of the World Heritage idea within the context of cities. With regard to the various levels of heritage, the focus is placed on the global and the local (Old Rauma). The global part is approached primarily through the lens of ICOMOS by examining the statements written by that expert organization with respect to the qualities of World Heritage nominated cities (of which there are altogether 220, both inscribed and rejected). My research discusses the historical construction of the World Heritage idea, the valuation discourses involving World Heritage cities and the politics of representation. It also conveys the widely shared understanding in heritage studies of heritage as a social and cultural construction and a selective relationship to the past from the point of view of the present. Heritage is more than the physical remains of the historical process, or the act of conservation of these remains. Heritage is not a thing but a meaning.

The period investigated in this research, from the 1970s up to the present, can without a doubt be labeled as a transformational period within the entire heritage sector, since both the growth of the sector and its conceptual evolvement are clearly visible. Consequently, the World Heritage practice in the beginning of the twenty-first century is very different from that of the late 1970s. It is also clear that a broader understanding of what constitutes a World Heritage city has evolved especially since the mid-1990s – new kinds of cities have been added to the World Heritage List during the past decade; earlier rejected nominations have been re-evaluated; the most straightforward monumental approach has been abandoned; and there has been a widening of a chronological perspective. Equally obvious is that there have been significant limitations and ambiguities connected with this new approach.

A central conclusion is that most World Heritage cities, contrary to general proclamations, have been weighed in relation to conventionally articulated artistic, architectural and historical values. They have been described as groups of monuments and buildings, as harmonic and visually pleasing scenes, and as stagnant objects – as end results of a process rather than as ongoing processes. There has been difficulty in articulating the intangible heritage aspects in relation to the tangible elements in a situation where UNESCO needs to remain committed to material heritage. A uniform language has been used in the valuation of cities, and it has been significantly influenced by the standardized process of nomination, evaluation and designation. In several ways, my research further confirms the existence, operation, and power of an internationally working “authorized heritage discourse”, as defined by Australian archaeologist Laurajane Smith (2006). The World Heritage Convention was drafted in conformity with this discourse, and has so far largely remained within its parameters. The analysis of the ICOMOS urban evaluations, even though comprising a diversified construction, has made explicit that the dominant conceptions of heritage are slow to adjust, and that the change is slowest at the level of heritage practice.

Whilst the ICOMOS statements on outstanding universal value constitute a narrative concerning altogether 182 places (and the additional 38 places which were not inscribed), addressed more in an abstract manner as a body of text about ‘the city’ and as a discursive construction, this research also adds another perspective. This involves an analysis of the articulation of the concept and the consequences of the discourse at the local level in the post-inscription phase of ‘World Heritage management’. In other words, when exploring the local case study, that of Old Rauma, this research examines how the universalizing concept of outstanding universal value operates in shaping the meanings of a particular heritage site. When viewed side-by-side with the international valuation discourse, the Old Rauma case makes explicit the nature of heritage as a process which builds local identities, which is bound to a particular place and to a particular history, and which involves actions and debates.

In 2004 the city of Rauma publicized plans for a large shopping centre development on the northern side of Old Rauma, in an area which had been defined as part of the World Heritage ‘buffer zone’. This city government decision was contested by several lo¬cal groups as well as by the national authority responsible for cultural heritage in Finland, the National Board of Antiquities. All of these entities considered that the project conflicted with Old Rauma’s World Heritage status. In early 2006 the Supreme Administrative Court ruled, in a 4–1 vote, to allow the shopping centre construction. With this decision the Court favored the legality of the local planning process over the international commitments.

It is difficult to pinpoint the exact effects of the internationalized heritage discourse on the lower levels of heritage practice. It is clear, however, that the consequences are significant – most international agendas get absorbed into national discourses and practices and via them into their local counterparts. This is also the case with World Heritage and with Old Rauma. However, when we think of the notion of outstanding universal value in particular, what the Old Rauma case makes obvious is the power of the local narrative of a place and heritage. This actually serves as a counter-argument to what was said about the power of the international heritage discourse. International definitions and concepts do not automatically, and without modification, travel to, and become accepted as, part of the local definition of a place. The case of Old Rauma shows that in the localized context, outstanding universal value gets interpreted in a novel manner, in many ways often disconnected from the official statements by ICOMOS and UNESCO. In Rauma, World Heritage and the concept of outstanding universal value were used as rhetorical tools in the construction of heritage narratives of local origin; however, these notions and their use were significantly influenced by the prior narratives and meanings associated with Old Rauma. Therefore, in the world of cultural globalization and globalized memory work, and in opposition to certain other examples such as those of Vienna and Dresden, Old Rauma provides a locally and nationally framed example.