IN-PERSON: Prague – Section B

Abstract

The need for stories is linked to the human need to be part of some closely connected community. Stories, lives and journeys are thoroughly entangled. In the light of the many conflicts and disasters that impact cities worldwide, governments are ever more challenged to understand and improve the impact of urban planning after disaster on local communities (both original residents coming back and newcomers). However, all too often the planning of the reconstruction of historical urban landscapes after disaster happens in a top-down way. Urban reconstruction projects therefore often run the risk of further disrupting the daily lives of local communities already hard hit by the disaster as there is little attention given to the role of memories and narratives attached to the commonplace heritage which exists as part of the urban terrain of everyday life and to which local residents were attached. Despite increased attention for communities and their socio-cultural and ‘non-tangible’ heritage, the fast material reconstruction of urban areas after disaster often appears more valued than the peculiar social life they hosted and bred before the disaster. From the perspective of existing practices of urban reconstruction planning, what could be learnt from these practices and projects in terms of how they address the relationship between the recovery process of the citizens and their city and the degree their active memories of (every day heritage) places and their daily journeys were respected and integrated in the planning process? What are the links between spatial memory, storytelling and place attachment? This contribution will tackle these questions through the pilot study of Ypres (Belgium, which was reduced to a ruin during World War I and which was completely reconstructed in a time span of a few decades while respecting the original urban configuration.