A two-day conference in Lviv kicked off the open enrollment of participants in the three-year international cultural project “UREHERIT. Architects for Heritage in Ukraine: Recreating Identity and Memory”.
“During the conference in Lviv, we launched the open enrollment of the project participants. We are waiting for applications from Ukrainian professionals and communities about their willingness to work in one or another working group”, – said the initiator and coordinator of the project, member of the Board of the Lithuanian Association of Architects Rūta Leitanaitė (Rūta Leitanaitė).
The aim of the three-year UREHERIT project is to explore various topics related to the preservation and restoration of cultural heritage.
“Heritage is a catalyst for the future for any country, and even more so for Ukraine, which is now really looking for restoration to rediscover and recreate its image and vision of the future,” said UNESCO coordinator Chiara Dezzi Bardeschi at the opening of the conference.
Acting Minister of Culture and Information Policy Rostislav Karandeev emphasized that coordination and interaction with the international community is a key factor for Ukraine in building solutions and developing algorithms for damage assessment, as well as restoration and preservation of cultural heritage.
Chairwoman of the State Agency for Tourism Development Maryana Oleskiv is convinced that the issue of incentives for heritage preservation is extremely important, so that it would be economically profitable for the owner to restore the monument. “Tourism is one of the ways that the heritage for the owner was not a yarmulke, but a commercially successful project. For our part, we are thinking, for example, of upgrading the category of a hotel that has carried out a full restoration of a historic building,” Oleskiw reported.
“We see cultural heritage not only as something we must preserve, but also as a resource for sustainable and democratic reconstruction of Ukraine, cities and the country itself – economically, environmentally and culturally. Heritage brings communities together, gives a sense of place and pride to a nation, and will help bring people back home,” Leitanaite said.
According to Ruth Schagemann, president of the Architects’ Council of Europe (ACE), policy makers need to recognize the value of all heritage, not just monuments with protected status. As for the European experience, “good public procurement, good competition, transparent processes, participation of people, local society, and adaptation of rules” can help Ukrainians to preserve architectural heritage.
Among the main topics of UREHERIT are assessment of war damage to cultural heritage; criteria and methodologies for assessing the value of heritage; public participation in the restoration of cultural heritage; architectural competitions; integrated renovation of modernist housing; technologies and innovations in restoration projects, etc.
At this stage of the project the existing situation and needs of Ukraine as a whole and individual cities are being assessed. The results of the analysis and a detailed plan for the directions will be presented at the next conference, in Stockholm in May 2024.
The conference in Lviv was attended by more than 300 professionals, during which the first developments, program concepts and even investment projects were presented.
Oleksandr Chyzhevskyi, President of the NCAU, emphasized that it is extremely important to introduce the importance of cultural heritage into the broader consciousness. He sees the implementation of the project’s developments in professional education as a key task.
Two educational programs are already underway – for students and graduate architects. For students, an educational program on the revival of cultural heritage as a resource for sustainable transformation will be developed by the Kharkiv School of Architecture (KSAU), while advanced training programs for professionals are being developed by the NSAU and Swedish architects.
As reported, the international cultural project “UREHERIT. Architects for Heritage in Ukraine: Recreating Identity and Memory” was initiated by the Lithuanian Association of Architects. It is co-financed by the European Union’s EUR 1 million Creative Europe program (project code 101121502 – U-RE-HERIT) and is implemented by a consortium of 11 professional organizations from nine countries.
