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Paper short abstract:

The paper revisits the phenomenological notion of place in context of current endeavors, in heritage studies and location-based heritage conservation, to introduce more-than-representational elements into understanding and assessment of the historical urban landscape.

Paper long abstract:

Since adoption to the Burra Charter in 1979, the term 'place' has surfaced in many location-based conservation guidelines, replacing terms like site or monument. The current Burra Charter emphasizes that place is not solely a tangible entity but equally embodies intangible dimensions and that its cultural significance is not only aesthetic, historical and scientific, but can also be social or spiritual. Furthermore, the Charter concedes that the value of places may differ between people and that their cultural significance may not be stable. This qualification of the conceptual understanding of place is linked to calls for democratization of heritage that, in terms of the historic urban landscape, have fostered implementation of participatory gestures in heritage management. This understanding of place can also be associated with the affective turn in heritage studies that has prompted scholars to devise methods that might empirically assist access to the more-than-representational aspects of people’s relations to location-based heritage. Focusing on the people-place nexus, such studies have renewed interest in concepts like 'sense of place' and 'place attachment' in understanding and promoting the social and spiritual value of the historic urban landscape.

Given the evolving interest in place in heritage studies and conservation, the paper revisits the notion of place, especially as developed in Jeff Malpas’ philosophical topography. By aligning the notion with the current progressions in the heritage field indicated above, the paper seeks to advance a phenomenological apprehension of place in expanding understanding of the cultural significance of historic urban landscapes.