What is Cultural Heritage Protection?

The essential difference between traditional and modern heritage protection lies in an understanding of whom protection is meant to serve.

Traditional protection is based primarily on the conviction that its objective is the physical protection of individual cultural monuments from attack, and from the changes wrought by time and modern ways of life, and on a presentation of the values that have led us to protect a monument as an item of cultural heritage.

As an economic, spatial and social category – and not just as a cultural bearer of national, aesthetic and religious values – heritage is regarded in a wider context than ever before.

• The political dimensions of heritage reside in the fact that the accessibility, knowledge, understanding and protection of heritage serve mainly as self-conformation for people, especially the young. Every social group has the right to locate itself in its historical, social and cultural environment; heritage can play, and plays, a decisive role in this.
• Heritage is becoming an element of social cohesion at the local community and regional levels; its uniformity fosters a sense of own identity, while its diversity encourages tolerance and respect for others.
• Heritage is an important promoter of sustainable development and cultural tourism, from environmental protection and the renewal and development of the countryside, to the widest cultural aspects of space and spatial development.
• Cultural heritage is also an important factor in bringing spatial elements together.

The contemporary understanding of heritage also goes beyond the preservation of individual buildings and objects, working in an interdisciplinary way by building on the work of the basic professions: archaeology, architecture, ethnology, landscape architecture, history, technical history, art history, the history of urban planning, and general history.
The profession is increasingly moving beyond the treatment of heritage on a case-by-case basis by widening its view to include larger spatial units and the wider values of the cultural environment, with a study of the content and full diversity of meanings of that environment.

By contrast, contemporary approaches expand the scope of those participating in protection (from the profession and local communities to civil society), in research, direct interventions in and on buildings, decision-making and the search for the most appropriate solutions, as well in heritage management.

Documenting – accompanies all stages of professional work. This covers the systematic collection, processing, analysis, search and forwarding of data. Files generally comprise a collection of all data on a building or area, such as its state, work carried out, conservation plans and projects, and the financial resources invested in it.

Unit of cultural heritage – is part of a building or a whole building, several buildings or an area that has cultural heritage features. When defining an individual unit, we observe the following principles in particular: the uniformity of the space, the homogeneity of its original use and the unity of the protection approach.

Recording – this is the phase of work in which, on the basis of the results of basic research, field work by conservators and other resources, chiefly existing protection records, we collect objects, buildings, groups of buildings or areas that have possible cultural heritage features. Archaeological research constitutes a special method of obtaining material and data on heritage.

ICOMOS – is the world non-governmental organisation for monuments and areas, founded in 1965. Its tasks are oriented towards strengthening the cultural heritage popularisation, research and protection, mobilising the general public and governments to undertake protection tasks and disseminating ideas, experiences and the results of protection work. It works with UNESCO and other international organisations.

In situ – is a basic protection principle that emphasises the inseparability of a building or part of a building from the environment in which it arose, and the need to protect it at the site itself. Relocation is only justified from a professional point of view if there is no other way of providing a monument with permanent protection.