Műemlék-helyreállítások tegnap, ma, holnap (A 27. Egri Nyári Egyetem előadásai 1997 Eger, 1997)

Előadások - Herb STOVEL: The interpretation of authenticity in Japan

HERB STOVEL THE INTERPRETATION OF AUTHENTICITY IN JAPAN I try to illustrate one particular set of relationships that I think are important in talking about authenticity; the relationship between values and attributes and then secondly I will try and go to Japan. I look at the use, the development of authenticity in Japaanese conservation practice. The discussion of authenticity in the last 5 years is very much dependant on the World Heritage Convention. What kind of assessments it makes of sights proposed for the World Heritage List. I would like to show you quickly, where authenticity lies in that process. Cultural heritage may be inscribed on the World Heritage List if it meets criteria in 3 broad areas. The first area is obvious. The first area is the qualities, the values. Without going through these in details but if property can be understood as a masterpiece if it can be understood to of influenced ideas or thinking, if it can be understood to be an excellent example of something, these are fairly obvious ways to try and describe the importance the quality of cultural heritage. But in the World Heritage Convention value is not enough. The convention asks two further questions. It applies secondly something called the test of authenticity. The World Heritage Commitee wishes to know, are these values expressed authentically and it refers to the designing, the material, workmenship and the setting. Or in the case of cultural landscape its distinctive character. This is a standard phrase from the World Heritage Convention's operating guidelines. To be honest not much attention is paid to this point. It is still in the ccriteria, but it is not well understood by the countries who proposed sites often I think it is not well understood by ICOMOS when it evaluates sites; so it is there in the language, but in the practice is often skipped through rather quickly. Thirdly to complete the qualification of the site for the World Heritage List. It is important to recognize that the World Heritage Commitee demands to be adequately protected in some fashion through law, through management, perhaps through traditional practices. This is significant in terms of understanding the purpose of the convention. Because the convention exists not just to make a list of important places but to make a list of important authentic protected places and so the World Heritage Commitee will often use this requirement as a tool to push on a government to improve the protection they bring to a place proposed for inscription. Focusing on the attributes that were mentioned in the test of authenticity of the World Heritage Convention are four: material, design, setting, and workmanship. In the recent debates on authenticity the description of the attributes has widened through the discussion we have had. There was an increasing concern for the dinamis attributes, traditions or function to complement concern for more static attributes, such as material or form. The description, the list I use here are the attributes as described in the Nara document. In the Nara document lists these as potential sources of information or atributes through which the values of the cultural heritage may be understood. How do we use these, which ones are important! It is important to recognize in the language of the convention this small word „or". The convention does not say the property must be authentic in design, material, setting, workmanship, it says it can be one, or some combination. The question is which ones, which combi-