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| Opening session in Lyon's Hotel de Ville |
Bill attended the Cities and Heritage Meeting held in Lyon on the 22nd - 24th May. The meeting was organised by the Lyon municipality, in partnership with the Organisation of World Heritage Cities, to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the designation of Lyon as a world heritage site by UNESCO. The meeting's theme was a sustainable future for world heritage cities.
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| Lyon's historic St Jean quarter with Fourvière Basilica and the Tour métallique above |
Lyon is a wonderful historic city which developed at the confluence of the Rhône and Saône rivers, first as the Roman capital of Gaul then in Renaissance and later guises. During the 16th century it was the home of the French court while they wade wars in Italy. A major silk-making industry developed at the north of the peninsula between the two rivers. Despite being the fourth largest city in France, the well-preserved historic quarter has an intimate atmosphere that belies the sheer size of Lyon and deserves to be better known as a heritage tourist destination in the UK. Here are covered alleyways which connect one street to another by way of hidden Renaissance courtyards, graceful grids of 18h century buildings, a grandiose Neoclassical Palace of Justice and an imposing riverside hospital which would not disappoint any capital city as a country's parliament building. Graceful bridges span the two rivers, while river bank esplanades open up vistas to appreciate the richness of the city's architecture. Above all of these stand the ornate edifice of the Fourvière Basilica and the Tour métallique.
The meeting was part-workshop, part-celebration of world
heritage cities and the work municipal officers and politicians are putting in
to grapple with heritage preservation and economic development. Can both be
mutually compatible, where heritage opens up opportunities for financial
improvement, or are they in such conflict that heritage is an obstacle that urban
planners need to overcome to ensure the economic well-being of the city? The
meeting met this question head on through case studies followed by sessions
about sustainable development, citizen participation and adaptive reuse. The
audience was a mixture of municipal officers and elected politicians.
Towards the end of the meeting a representative from Mali spoke about recent damage to Timbuktu and the work to restore structures and salvage burnt documents. The presentation put much into perspective regarding managing world heritage cities against risk.
Towards the end of the meeting a representative from Mali spoke about recent damage to Timbuktu and the work to restore structures and salvage burnt documents. The presentation put much into perspective regarding managing world heritage cities against risk.
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| City politicians and officers discuss heritage and development |
Sustainable
Development
In many cities developers, planners and politicians
view heritage as a brake on economic growth. Historic buildings are often viewed
as an impediment to successful development and, at worse, torn down to make way
for construction to ensure the city's economy can continue to prosper.
The meeting presented examples where making the most
of heritage and improving the historic environment can be drivers for
development. All successfully put heritage at the heart of redevelopment,
using heritage as an economic stimulant in very different ways. They brought to
mind recent successes and failures in my own city of Sheffield where 19th century
educational buildings central to the origins of the University have become a
hotel and bars, and where new open spaces blend traditional city materials with
modern designs, but also where the University has dropped a plan to convert
part of the listed Jessops Hospital in preference for demolition to increase
the size while reducing the cost of the new Faculty of Engineering, an
inappropriate modern intervention into a square surrounded by listed buildings.
Lyon is creating a new riverside esplanade along the
Saone which will build on the economic success world heritage designation has
brought to the city through increased tourism.
Porto is regenerating the Morro da Sé
district as a mixed-use, inter-generational area where new residents and
tourists will both contribute to the city's economy. Ruined buildings will be
brought back into use with modern materials that echo the historic fabric.
Beemster, Netherlands, has a quality team who advise
on new planning applications through identifying whether they contribute to
what it is to be 'Beemster like'. The team have worked with a cheese company to
build a nee factory which is the largest structure in the world heritage area
but relates to the divine proportion of Fibonacci's Sequence of 1.618 that the
Beemster landscape was originally laid out along.
Strasbourg has a green transport infrastructure policy
which encourages greater spend in its city centre by ensure that lower numbers
of cars make it a much more pleasant place to visit, shop, eat and drink.
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| Hôtel-Dieu |
Adaptive
Reuse
The two key examples here were from Lyon and La
Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. The former's Hôtel-Dieu has been a hospital since the
medieval period, its grand 18th century facade and cupola dominating
the west bank of the Rhone. It was enlarged up to the 20th century but became
unsuitable for modern hospital health care. The scale of the building is
staggering, perhaps best illustrated by two statistics - it has 2,000
rooms and 2 hectares of roofs. The city is now grappling with the challenge of
revitalising the building for modern use while incorporating the different
phases of construction. The plan is for a mixed use development including a
hotel, convention centre, museum, apartments, offices and shops, while creating
public access by opening inner courtyards and making thoroughfares.
In La Chaux-de-Fonds, which originated ss a 19th
century watchmaking town, a strip of industrial wasteland alongside railway
tracks at the bottom of the slope of watchmaking buildings will be redeveloped.
New buildings will follow the same dimensions and axis of earlier buildings to
fit with the 19th century urban rationale.
Hôtel-Dieu
offers an exciting opportunity to reuse an historic building which is also a
major city landmark. It is not without its controversy, as one Lyon resident
told me many residents do not like a public building supported with public
funds going into private for-profit use. The amount of public access being
created does appear to counter this and I wonder how much these plans have been
communicated to the wider city population.
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| Historic and modern together |
Both plans involve new buildings and the architect's
drawings show very generic modern steel and grass structures which have been
constructed in many European cities over the last 15 years. While the scale and
form may relate to the historic architecture, the materials suggest
'everytown' buildings that do not relate to the older structures. If these
designs on paper make it to concrete and steel they will be a lost opportunity
by the architects to creatively and deeply engage with the original buildings
in creating dynamic, modern and harmonious new structures.
Citizen
Participation
This session highlighted the involvement of Lyon in
the Heritage Open Days and in the guidance of managing the Albi world heritage
designation. In Regensburg, Germany, came an excellent presentation on concrete
methods to develop ground-up participation based on the understanding that cities
are created from the continuous interaction between inhabitants and places. Municipalities
need to mobilise their citizens, find ways to open up two-way communication
between the people leading projects and residents. The question was posed - are
citizens really at the core of public action and governance? The answers
lie in designing urban objects to meet local realities, respecting citizens'
traditions and skills, and integrating citizens participation into planning and
development. This is necessary to encourage representative democracy. It improves
quality of life and strengthens social cohesion within community. But, to do so
requires a new urban mind set – that heritage is not an obstacle but the
resource for the whole community – and so change perceptions so that conservationists
and developers are not on opposite sides.
This was one of the most inspiring presentations of
the conference. It requires a different way of thinking from politicians and
municipal officers, a letting go of control so that the municipality works more
for sand with its residents rather than doing things to them. It should work
well on the neighbourhood scale. In Sheffield the community assemblies went
part-way to doing this, before being scaled back, and now it is left once again
to the motivated individuals of residents’ associations and local forums to take this form of participation to the council
– on the outside calling in.
Summary
I left the
conference inspired by what many cities are striving for in their desire to not
just balance heritage and development, but in trying to use heritage as a
positive driver of development which is brings out local distinctiveness as a
force for economic growth rather than reducing city after city to a generic look-a-like.
While world heritage designation is the motivation for the politicians and officers
gathered here, the ideas and lessons can be applied to any town or city – but it
does require a change of mind set and a broader, longer vision amongst the
elected and the appointed than perhaps many urban areas are perhaps currently blessed
with. At least for now. Some examples for this meeting can show some of the ways forward.
