Paper short abstract:

Acknowledging that historic places are both material entities and emotional constructs, the paper explores the impact of recognising people’s diverse and dynamic relations to places for an understanding of how the past figures in the present.

Paper long abstract:

A significant element in people’s sense of belonging and community relates to the cognitive and affective meaning of place and its material manifestation. This applies in particular to places that are understood to be in one way or other ‘of the past’. Memories and practices, whether collective or personal, are as a rule emplaced, set in a place that is composed of specific physical features. This is why memorials are designed and sites of memory promoted and revered. Proponents strive to affix specific meaning to space and matter in order to promote particular knowledge and particular sentiments, hoping to cement the trinity of meaning, matter and place.

Recent toppling of public statues around the would remind us (once again) that such unions are precarious. It further reiterates that places have different meanings for different individuals and groups, and that associating meaning and place is a continuous cultural process. The paper outlines some of the key issues and challenges that this observation poses to prevailing understandings of urban heritage. The objective is to interrogate the relation between cultural heritage (as embodied in the historic urban landscape) and place attachment that is formed through experiences, reflection and sensory engagement with the built environment. The paper argues for the merit of considering the multiple and (sometimes more, sometimes less) dynamic understandings that people contribute to place and how such an approach can contribute to a sustained comprehension of how the past figures in the present.