Culture as process

Preservationists often pride themselves on working “in the trenches,” having “battled” some enemy or otherwise toiled against the ignorance, sloth, or greed of non-believers. Such practical, on-the-ground experiences are routinely cited as the source of insight about how preservation should be practiced. But this habit also brings with it a disdain for theory that hampers the field. The metaphorically martial experiences of preservation advocates should not be the only guide for the field. As valuable as it is to draw on past experience to inform future practice, it is also important to have ideals—specifically, ideals in the form of a theoretical understanding of how the preservation field works as part of modern society.(15)

Historic preservation is one of the deliberate ways that culture is shaped in modern society, so any theory of preservation must start with a model of what culture is and how it works. Many books have been written trying to define culture—the critic Raymond Williams famously wrote that it “is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language”(16) —but this simplistic insight provides a starting point: the idea that culture is a process, not a set of things.

Culture is dynamic and changing, a notion reinforced by our current period of intense globalization with all its attendant cultural conflicts, shifts, and innovations. This dynamism makes the study of culture difficult and raises the question of how to deal with the contingencies and changefulness of cultural forms. It also contrasts with the more traditional notion of culture on which the traditional practices of the preservation field are based: that is, that culture is defined by sets of artifacts that are easily knowable and that, once identified, can be used to create static, or fixed, cultural norms (“high style,” “vernacular,” and so on).

Corollary to the idea of culture as a process is the idea that culture is encompassing: It consists, not just of the arts, religion, and traditions (all defined broadly), but of all contemporary “ways of living together” including market relations, media, political systems, and so on. The process of culture, in other words, is interwoven with politics and markets in modern society, making it far more difficult to justify the theory that culture is a separate sphere of things remote from these other social phenomena and forces. In light of understanding culture as a broad social process, the question becomes how to preserve culture as a process when our preservation concepts and tools depend on us seeing culture as a set of artifacts with fairly fixed meanings to preserve and interpret.

Under the umbrella of traditional, static views of culture, preservation theory focused on how to approach and solve well-defined, technical and artistic problems such as anastylosis,(17) the interpretation of monuments, and listing of individual buildings and districts. Against the backdrop of process-based views of culture, preservation theory has to re-examine some old questions and branch out to engage some different questions—especially those involving the political and economic aspects of preservation.

Here is where values-based theories of preservation can provide a framework. By centering a model of preservation on the perceived values of places, as opposed to the observed qualities of fabric, values-centered preservation acknowledges the multiple, valid meanings of a particular place. It acknowledges their multiplicity, their changeability, and the fact that values come from many different sources. By validating the idea that heritage is valued in myriad different ways, by myriad different people and institutions with different world-views and epistemologies, values-centered theory ineluctably leads practitioners to inquire and consult widely in performing research on places and in formulating plans for them. Participation—acknowledged widely as one of the urgent needs in contemporary preservation practice—is part and parcel of the values-centered model of preservation.

There is, as yet, no comprehensive work tying together the many strands of cultural theory (from anthropology, geography, sociology, literary studies, and more) and packaging them in an omnibus values-centered theory of preservation. Nor, importantly, have economic perspectives on the values of heritage been adequately reconciled with the many cultural perspectives now seen as valid. (18) However, we can envision what this future theory might be like by re-reading Alois Riegl’s “Modern Cult of Monuments” and imagining an even more encompassing, sprawling, and complex model that articulates, as Riegl did, the number of different meanings, values, and images our contemporary society creates through the construction of “monuments.”

Theory Into Practice

In contemporary society, there is some inherent uncertainty and changeability when it comes to preservation values and significance. Values are not fixed; they are in some respects situational, and change over time.(19) Acknowledging and embracing the changeability of values and significance brings historic preservation in line with the dominant contemporary understanding of culture as a process not a set of things with fixed meaning. In material terms, we find some expression of this principle back at St. Paul’s Chapel. Recently, an additional layer of value—at once social and (someday) historical—has been added to the significance of this site. In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, the chapel served literally as a sanctuary for rescue workers at the neighboring World Trade Center site. In repairing and restoring the building after serving as a way station for months, it was decided to retain the scratches and dents workers’ equipment had inadvertently made on the pews instead of erasing these marks in restoring the chapel’s interior. Thus, the scratches and marks made by 9/11 rescuers took their place alongside George Washington’s pew and Pierre L’Enfant’s altar sculpture. (Figure 6)

Values-centered preservation establishes a process by which preservation practitioners can track the changing meanings of a particular place—as culture continues to shift, evolve, create, and destroy meanings—and incorporate them in policies and plans for conservation, interpretation, protection, and investment. The approach is defined by the central role of significance (comprised of some number of different values) in decision-making, and the participation of a number of different parties—not just “the experts”—in decisions.(20)

The Burra Charter has been influential in advancing and codifying values-centered preservation.(21) First issued in 1979 by Australia ICOMOS, this charter included two particular innovations. First, it defined the identification and retention of “cultural significance” as the central goal of preservation practice (as opposed to some notion of material integrity). Second, it set the stage for a more participatory and open process of consultation. Offered as an ideal framework, adaptable to many situations facing heritage preservation practitioners—and not as a statutory document or regulation—the Burra Charter has nonetheless been very influential.

Cultural significance was defined in the Burra Charter in terms of four kinds of value: historic, aesthetic, social, and scientific. Any heritage place, the framers held, should be understood as having a range of different values, as seen by a corresponding range of different experts and other stakeholders. Indeed, these values define the heritage place, and make up our understanding of a place’s “significance.”(22)

“Significance”—the synthetic statement of a site’s value and the reason why it should be preserved—warrants our close attention. Elsewhere, it has been argued that the significance concept has been treated as too rigid.(23) It is essential to realize that these values are not fixed or intrinsic; they are situational, constructed and shaped by the time, place, and people involved in articulating them. They are not chimerical, but they do change and get reinterpreted, and indeed should be expected to change.(24)

The Burra Charter has been used extensively as a guide to preservation practice in the last few decades, and its influence has been felt far beyond Australia.(25) Critical in values-centered preservation is the exercise of outlining and researching the values that contribute to cultural significance. The Burra Charter’s four-part values typology—historical, aesthetic, social, and scientific—has been well tested, though an even broader typology may be called for, depending on the particular qualities of the site in question. If a site clearly has ecological importance, for instance, ecological values should be included in the interests of dealing holistically with the place.

The town of Richmond, Northumberland, England, illustrates a quick way to outline a values typology. (Figure 7) Economic values present a particularly thorny set of problems in this vein. Opinions differ as to whether economic values consist of an additional set of values to those the Burra Charter identifies, effectively widening the spectrum of values appropriate to consider in heritage decisions, or whether economic values present a different and alternative way of looking at all the values of a site. (26) Economic values, in many instances, do constitute an additional set of values for most heritage sites (and certainly a different set of stakeholders and constituents). Thus, in order for historic preservation to truly account for site values holistically, economic values must be included.

The conflicts between economic and cultural schemes for looking at heritage values have been well established.(27) The incommensurability of cultural and economic valuing stems from real epistemological differences, and it also owes a lot to disciplinary separations deeply entrenched over the 20th century.(28) To overcome these real, epistemologically rooted differences, one can think of the broad spectrum of site values in terms of “heritage values” and “contemporary values.” This way of thinking captures the more present and meaningful conflict when it comes to managing or making decisions about a site. Heritage values are those contributing to the sense of a place being endowed with some legacy from the past—quite literally the stuff in need of preservation. It typically would include artistic values tied to the original vision of an artist, as well as those accumulated over time. It would also include historical values associated with the site, as well as the scientific or “archeological” values embedded in the material layers of the site. Contemporary values are distinct in that they are important for reasons other than recovery or retention of cultural significance, but nevertheless are recognized as legitimate values of a site, such as profit, recreational use, ecological integrity, and public health.

However a site’s values are organized, articulated, and assessed, the key point vis-à-vis preservation decision-making and management is that these different values often conflict. Because all values cannot be maximized simultaneously and because resources available to preservation are limited, trade-offs are necessary and priorities must be made. One could ignore the conflicts, but this would presuppose having chosen to elevate, a priori, one type of value over others. Indeed, this has been the traditional strategy of preservation: Elevate historical and aesthetic values over all others, and when even these particular values conflict, let professional judgment (not a logical process) be the guide to good decisions. As an alternative, the strategies of values-centered preservation enable a truly holistic handling of a site’s values and bring to bear tools for dealing with the values and their conflicts rationally as well as politically.

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