Abstract
The debate on the reuse of religious cultural heritage necessarily revolves around shared meanings and values: heritage communities will be able to discuss and design a future for their religious properties only if they share common languages and criteria of discernment. Nonetheless, there is a risk that a generic call to common ‘values’ will continue to be superficial, rhetorical or ‘appeasing’. Conversely, the dramatic nature of the subject calls for rigorous assessment and selection criteria, the ability to make decisions—including painful ones—without euphemisms, and the courage to embark on ambitious paths of social and architectural regeneration. As a theoretical contribution to the debate, a taxonomy of values is proposed here, based on a process-centred historical approach, founded on the investigation of the ‘formative processes’ behind heritage and its multiple meanings. The aim is to begin to build a shared lexicon—mainly in the field of the relationship between history, memory, and society—capable of accompanying innovative narratives and critical assessment tools. The possibility of assigning specific ‘names’ to ‘values’ will allow a positive interaction between the processes of community discernment and external expertise: in this perspective, each reuse will be considered an additional and creative step, incorporated in a long process of adaptation and resilience, based on a historical sequence of different and coexisting values.
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Notes
- 1.
Capanni (2019). The document Decommissioning and ecclesial reuse of churches is available in Italian, English and French at: http://www.cultura.va/content/cultura/it/pub/documenti/decommissioning.html (accessed 1.11.2021); the Message of the Holy Father Francis to participants at the conference is available at: https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/pont-messages/2018/documents/papa-francesco_20181129_messaggio-convegno-beniculturali.html (accessed 1.11.2021). The surveys and the symposium were organized by the Pontifical Council for Culture (Department for Cultural Heritage), in cooperation with the Italian Episcopal Conference (National Office for Cultural Heritage and Worship Buildings) and the Pontifical Gregorian University (Faculty of History and Cultural Heritage of the Church, Department of Cultural Heritage of the Church, Rome). The scientific committee of the initiatives included: Carlos Alberto Moreira Azevedo (Pontifical Council for Culture); Ottavio Bucarelli (Pontifical Gregorian University); Fabrizio Capanni (Pontifical Council for Culture); Andrea Longhi (Politecnico di Torino); Paweł Malecha (Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, Vatican City); Valerio Pennasso (Italian Episcopal Conference); Lydia Salviucci Insolera (Pontifical Gregorian University). For a preliminary critical discussion of the document, see: Longhi (2020b).
- 2.
Main recent research studies and publications (last 10 years) include: Coomans et al. (2012), Faltrauer et al. (2013), Sauvé and Coomans (2014), Noppen et al. (2015), Bartolomei (2016–2017), Bartolozzi (2017), Fiorani et al. (2017), Gerhards and de Wildt (2017), Niglio and Visentin (2017), Wüstenrot Stiftung (2017), Chavardès and Dufieux (2018), Jaspers et al. (2018), Resenberg and Zahner (2018), Fernández Cobián (2020), Reinstra and Strolenberg (2020), Bartolomei and Nannini (2021). For a preliminary bibliographical overview, see: Longhi (2021).
- 3.
A number of research initiatives on the liturgical and religious history of the ecclesiastical architectural heritage have been developed in Italy over the past two decades. In particular: the series of International Liturgical Conferences at the monastery of Bose; the conferences on Art, architecture and liturgy at the Venice Biennale; and various research programs promoted by the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI) in cooperation with state and pontifical universities.
- 4.
https://www.icomos.org/charters/venice_e.pdf (accessed 1/11/2021).
- 5.
https://whc.unesco.org/en/conventiontext/ (accessed 1/11/2021).
- 6.
https://www.icomos.org/en/resources/charters-and-texts (accessed 1/11/2021).
- 7.
- 8.
Council of Europe Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society, Treaty No. 199 (https://rm.coe.int/1680083746), open for signature 27/10/2005, 21 ratifications (1/11/2021).
- 9.
The main reference used is the Statement on the protection of religious properties within the framework of the World Heritage Convention (Kiev 2010), that “recognized the role played by religious communities in the creation, maintenance, and continuous shaping of sacred places, and the custodial role played by them in caring for these as living heritage” (art. 4): https://whc.unesco.org/en/religious-sacred-heritage/ (accessed 1/11/2021).
- 10.
See the last Resolution 20GA/19 People-Centred Approaches to Cultural Heritage approved by the 20th General Assembly of ICOMOS (3–16.12.2020): https://www.icomos.org/images/DOCUMENTS/Secretariat/2021/OCDIRBA/Resolution_20GA19_Peolple_Centred_Approaches_to_Cultural_Heritage.pdf (accessed 1/11/2021); see: Court and Wijesuriya (2015).
- 11.
- 12.
See Footnote 1.
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Acknowledgements
The reflections proposed in this article draw on the experience of several research projects on religious heritage, carried out in the past two decades within the Politecnico di Torino (former Department of Town and Housing, currently the Interuniversity Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning and interdepartmental Responsible Risk Resilience Centre) with the support of the Italian Episcopal Conference (National Office for Ecclesiastical Cultural Heritage) and the fundamental collaboration of several ecclesial organizations, to which I would like to express my thanks. A first formulation of the hypothesis presented here was hosted by the journal BDC. Bollettino del centro Calza Bini: I thank its director Luigi Fusco Girard for inviting me to develop a historical reflection in this direction. Direct contact with religious heritage communities has been established thanks to the “Guarino Guarini” association of Turin (founded in 1999) and, recently, thanks to the organizations Future for Religious Heritage and the ICOMOS-PRERICO Italian scientific committee. I would like to thank all the colleagues, friends, young scholars, and students with whom I have discussed these issues.
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Longhi, A. (2022). Calling ‘Values’ by ‘Name’: Historical Analysis and Critical Discernment for the Interpretation and Regeneration of Underused Religious Heritage. In: Niglio, O. (eds) Regenerating Cultural Religious Heritage. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3470-4_2
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