Engaging architectural heritage in climate action

[EN] The ICOMOS Working Group on Climate Change and Cultural Heritage have recently released an Outline of Climate Change and Cultural Heritage.García-Esparza, J. (2019). Engaging architectural heritage in climate action. VITRUVIO - International Journal of Architectural Technology and Sustainability. 4(2):VII-VIII. https://doi.org/10.4995/vitruvio-ijats.2019.12817OJSVIIVIII42ICOMOS Climate Change and Cultural Heritage Working Group. 2019. The Future of Our Pasts: Engaging Cultural Heritage in Climate Action, July 1, 2019. Paris: ICOMOS.United Nations. 2017. Global indicator framework for the Sustainable Development Goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Resolution A/RES/71/313

Alfredo Baeschlin y la arquitectura popular vanguardista, Ibiza 1933-1934

El artículo pretende reflexionar sobre la casuística profesional y personal de Alfredo Baeschlin como paradigma de una época intrincada en el modo de entender la vida, las relaciones sociales y la profesión vinculada a la arquitectura como vía de aproximación entre la arquitectura tradicional y las corrientes arquitectónicas más vanguardistas. Para ello, se propone un análisis sobre lo que sucedió en Ibiza, isla conocida por sus flirteos con la modernidad, y escuela experimental, vital, emocional, idílica y utópica para intelectuales que buscaron un trance temporal que reordenara o aireara sus percepciones mediante una profunda inmersión en un mundo luminoso, espacioso y ancestral donde sólo algunos viajeros pudieron encontrar la inspiración rodeados del incomparable paisaje mediterráneo. El viaje y la experiencia cargaron de razones un mito al que muchos arquitectos recurrieron para investigar con el fin de comprender el presente y el futuro de una arquitectura popular vanguardista. El enfoque perceptivo, la imagen y el valor cultural fueron los encargados de reflexionar el ámbito arquitectónico de la época. (A

Are World Heritage concepts of integrity and authenticity lacking in dynamism? A critical approach to Mediterranean autotopic landscapes

This paper examines how contemporary on-going and lively debate on Critical Heritage Studies merges with previous discourses on World Heritage Cultural Landscapes and rural societies. The scholarly approach to authenticity and integrity, and the critical point of static and dynamic approaches to these terms allow the author to challenge previous World Heritage (WH) discourses with a view to obtaining innovative insight into abandoned vernacular landscapes. Two main arguments are thus developed in this study. The first of these is an overview of the dynamics of abandoned cultural landscapes on an international scale. The second is an inside view aiming to provide an accurate interpretation of how these landscapes should be scrutinised and understood. To do this, autotopias and heterotopias broach the fundamental issue of how the Outstanding Universal Value of attributes in abandoned cultural landscapes needs to be understood, enhanced, experienced, and managed in an innovative WH approach. In conclusion, complex proposals for these heritage landscapes should rely on understanding the dynamics of the material and the social construct of the habitats they contain in order to assess them effectively from the standpoint of a World Heritage Cultural process Assemblage rather than that of Outstanding Material Stratification

La valorización de la arquitectura vernácula. Claves históricas para el discurso actual

The article analyzes how vernacular architecture was valorized depending on the place, the cultural background and the external influences in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The discourse relates Spain with Central European countries, those who were pioneers in encouraging culture, traditions and pedagogy through a new way of observing and feeling the beauty of certain objects. As it will see, eclectic views took place, from those who defended tradition, to those who viewed the weight of history as a burden detrimental to the evolution and progress. In that sense, the intended approach on the modern perception of the traces of vernacular architecture is novel because the topic is focused from the cultural and societal divergences from the different temporalities. The paper concludes the analysis of the place and their traces by noticing their topicality with contemporary assessments on the vernacular architecture and society of the different Cultural Environments.El artículo analiza cómo la arquitectura vernácula fue valorizada en función del lugar, el contexto cultural y las influencias externas a finales del siglo XIX y principios del siglo XX. El discurso relaciona España con países de la Europa Central, pioneros en alentar la cultura, las tradiciones y la pedagogía a través de una nueva forma de observar y sentir la belleza de ciertos objetos. El discurso analizará diferentes visiones eclécticas que tuvieron lugar, desde los que defendían la tradición a los que consideraban el peso de la historia como una carga perjudicial para la evolución y el progreso. En ese sentido, el enfoque pretendido hacia la percepción moderna de las trazas de la arquitectura vernácula es novedoso porque se centra en las diferencias culturales y sociales de las distintas temporalidades. El documento concluye el análisis del lugar y sus trazas al denotar su actualidad referida a los estudios contemporáneos sobre la arquitectura vernácula y la sociedad de los diferentes entornos culturales

Beyond the intangible/tangible binary: an analysis of historic built environments in Valencia

This paper is a theoretical reflection aiming to understand how specific assets of intangible heritage are affected by contemporary discourse. This approach focuses on understanding the protection, preservation and reenactment of the intangible heritage found in Spanish rural landscapes. By an analysis of the global, national and regional laws, the paper addresses the need to approach the intangible, understanding the peculiarities of places that shape the scenery. The places and ‘Assets of Cultural Interest’ analysed in this paper are defined as geographic areas associated with a historic event, activity, or people, which exhibit cultural and aesthetic values. Following this definition, these landscapes are experiential cultural spaces, involving a complex set of elements, fixed, semi-fixed and unfixed. The way in which these traditions are viewed and experienced by locals and foreigners plays a central role in many intangible heritage studies, as does the way in which it reflects integrity, authenticity, attachment and a sense of identity, and how it anchors collective memory. It is the intention of this paper to emphasise the need to transfer the phenomenon of intangible heritage from the realm of a lived experience to the world of living places. In doing so some questions arise: Is the intangible cultural heritage contained in rural landscapes authentic? Is it simply the materiality, the past act or the past cultural process, or is it the way the intangible cultural heritage has been managed until today? Are we applying critical considerations to inner and outer perceptions, appropriations and transmigrations when managing cultural heritage

Architectural technologies, forms of culture and creativity that emerge and evolve

[EN] An approach to architectural technology from different fields can be helpful in remotely understanding the dynamism, twists and turns, of the very sense of technology and sustainability and their importance in the discourse…García-Esparza, JA. (2018). Architectural technologies, forms of culture and creativity that emerge and evolve. VITRUVIO - International Journal of Architectural Technology and Sustainability. 3(1):VII-IX. doi:10.4995/vitruvio-ijats.2018.10444SWORDVIIIX3

Barracas on the Mediterranean Coast

A cultural heritage approach is used to present a scientific analysis of a traditional building method. A series of detailed monographs are referenced. The article discusses the Central European conservation theories of “Heimatschutz” at the beginning of the 20th century and the ideals of Krausism to determine a direct relationship between narrative art and photography as a threshold to the heritage analyzed. The study begins with a metric analysis of the barraca, a typical one-story thatched farmhouse in the Valencia area, and examines its construction and pathology; the study reviews the construction's constituent parts through schematic illustrations to offer a greater understanding of its creation and subsequent processes of transformation. The study departs from the strict reinterpretation of traditional building techniques to adopt an approach that examines the use of its component materials, thus providing an understanding of interventions that are compatible with conservation

Epistemological paradigms in the perception and assessment of vernacular architecture

The current situation of vernacular architecture is a result of the different perspectives of agents who have some sort of direct or indirect relationship with the architecture of the past which has influenced attitudes and ways of thinking, thus guaranteeing its assessment and survival. Therefore, this article reviews recent currents of thought and theories encapsulating the increased value of vernacular architecture. In the eighteenth century, this architecture made the romantic ideals of rural society synonymous with its surroundings, territory and country. In the twentieth century, a select few modernist intellectuals carried out in-depth studies of this architectural type in relation to its formal values. Now, in the twenty-first century, it has become the object of technological and scientific analysis for many experts. The current situation still presents many unresolved problems, which are perhaps the result of little thought having been put into specific aspects of the process of vernacular architecture

Narrating the Urban Fabric of our Historical Towns

This article explores informal expressions of cultural heritage in historical towns. The framework in historical urban settlements uses research to analyse the entanglements of urban heritage when surveyed as environments where subcultures and minorities inhabit and create those sites. The approach challenges the idealistic constructed scenarios of the past and provides space for new interpretations on the cultural diversity of the unplannable or informal in place-making. This paper examines the heritage conservation paradox on how historical values can better incorporate past and contemporary anthropological informalities

Tennis injuries. A review of the literature

L’objectiu del treball present és oferir una revisió del coneixement científic disponible de les lesions en el tennis durant els últims 15 anys, per tal d’establir l’estat actual del coneixement sobre el tema i permetre un plantejament millor de les línies d’investigació. Les troballes principals d’aquesta revisió bibliogràfica foren, per una banda, la gran variació en la incidència lesional reportada en els diferents estudis epidemiològics analitzats. D’altra banda, tot i que una evidència científica important demostra que la gran majoria de les lesions ocorren a les extremitats inferiors, només el 24% dels estudis analitzats en aquesta revisió bibliogràfica tingueren com a objecte d’estudi els membres inferiors i el tronc. Pel que fa als estudis d’intervenció analitzats des de l’any 1995 fins a l’actualitat, únicament se n’han publicat 7, que, a més, tenen limitacions, ja que no presenten intervals de confiança quan informen de l’efectivitat de la intervenció subjecta a examen. Per últim, cal indicar que des de 2007 fins a l’actualitat el nombre de publicacions en el camp de les lesions en el tennis ha anat disminuint de forma progressiva, per la qual cosa cal una investigació major per elaborar programes de prevenció de lesions que es demostrin realment efectius.The aim of the present study is to provide a review of the available scientific knowledge in terms of tennis injuries for the last 15 years with the aim of establishing the current state of knowledge about the matter and to allow a better approach of the lines of research. The main findings of this systematic review were firstly the great variation in the reported injury incidence between the different descriptive epidemiological studies analyzed. On the other hand, although a great scientific evidence proves that most of the injuries take place in the lower limbs, only the 24% of the studies analyzed in the present systematic review had the lower limbs and the trunk as research objects. Taking into account the intervention studies analyzed, just 7 articles were published between 1995 and the present time, besides having limitations due to the fact that they not include confidence intervals when reporting the effectiveness of the intervention under exam. Lastly, from 2007 to the present time the number of published studies in the field of tennis injuries has been progressively decreasing, so it becomes necessary a greater investigation in order to solve this fact and to develop tennis injury prevention programs which prove to be really effective