VIRTUAL: Prague Heritages
Abstract
The study concerns the multiple threats continually facing the world’s cultural heritage during crises. It intends to shift the interests of urgent reconstruction practices to the importance of building City Archive and explore its values for urban recovery and cultural identity protection. The paper would discuss how we might employ this concept of method to regenerate a destroyed space with an inherited cultural and historical significance. It would draw attention to the role of collective memory and active citizenship in relation to the city archive within post-war settings. This research aims to propose a theoretical model for continuing and reproducing features of City Archive as a model of collective memory and culture-led generation of the historic urban spaces. The study would be pursued through a theoretical discussion, analysis of the scientific production and experiences that are related to such issues. It would apply also a qualitative method via field study and in-depth interviews with expertise in this archival field, architectural and conservation professionals, residents/immigrants who are known as local residents to the case study. The paper is timely research joining the ongoing ones to protect cultural heritage and shared identity. Thus, the hypothesis may be more open and could productively inform debates and practices relating to urban cultural memory. It would end with some concluding thoughts on the role of city archives in rebuilding war-damaged cities as well as in the spatial urban-based cultural memory studies and the broader theoretical and practical implications in relation to space, archive and memory.
Anas Shrefahe is An Architect and Urbanist Researcher. He studied Architecture at the University of Aleppo and pursued his postgraduate studies in London at the University of Greenwich and Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. He has achieved his Master of Research in Architecture from the Royal College of Art. Currently, Anas is a PhD Candidate at Instituto Superior Técnico – Lisbon. Anas’s study focuses on culture, heritage and space identity. It looks in depth at the impacts of the transition process and the change of the space formative and identity over time as a result of conflicts.
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6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
Wednesday 28th June, 2023