Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

Politecnico di Milano School of Architecture, Urban Planning and Construccon Engineering Master of Science in Architecture and Preservaaon

Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape The case of La Plata

Politecnico di Milano School of Architecture, Urban Planning and Construction Engineering Master of Science in Architecture and Preservation

Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape The case of La Plata

Student: Maria Estefania Gioia (832856)

Supervisor: Alessandro Balducci Co- Supervisor: Chiara Geroldi

Year 2016/2017

Index

ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION

9 11

PART I_ Urban Conservation discussion on International Policy towards a broadening perception of the ‘Historic Urban Landscape’ approach.

A. Analyzing World Heritage Convention concepts and the evolution of UNESCO recommendations.

1. A brief look at the 1972 World Heritage Convention.

1.1. How does the Convention work?

1.1.1. The Operational Guidelines 1.1.2. State Parties, the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies 1.1.3. The steps of the World Heritage List Nomination process 1.2. Important concepts for the World Heritage List: ‘OUV’ and the Selection Criteria

19 20 21 22 23

2. Cultural Heritage as a category in the World Heritage List 2.1. ‘Monument’, ‘Site’ and ‘Group of buildings’ classifications 2.2. ‘Cultural Landscape’ as a type of Cultural Heritage 2.2.1. Are cities Cultural Landscapes?

27 27 28 29

3. A brief history towards Urban Conservation 3.1. Heritage Conservation and urban interventions as a modern idea 3.2. The common origins of Urban Discipline and Urban Conservation 3.3. Urban Conservation discussion on International Policy since 1972 World Heritage Convention to nowadays 4. ‘2011 UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape’ 4.1. The ‘Historic urban landscape’ approach 4.1.1. Integrating disciplines and Actors 4.1.2. Methodologies and Tools

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33 35 38 43 45 46

B. Analyzing World Heritage Convention concepts and UNESCO recommendations in Latin America.

1. Mapping Cultural World Heritage Sites in Latin America and the Caribbean 1.1. Cultural World Heritage Sites in “urban context” 1.2. An analysis of the Historic Centers and Historic Towns 1.2.1. A South American analysis

51 52 53 55

2. About Latin America and the Caribbean: 1.1. Regional Charters for heritage protection 1.2. Regional analysis on 2016 UNESCO Report “Culture: Urban Future”

59 60

Case Studies: a. The Urban Ensemble of Brasilia as ‘Cultural Heritage’ in the World Heritage List b. 'Rio de Janeiro: Carioca Landscapes between the Mountains and the Sea' c. Valparaiso as a UNESCO site and the Historic Urban Landscape approach

64 66 68

CONCLUSION PART I

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PART II_ The City of La Plata. Reflecting on the ‘historic urban landscape’ approach and ‘urban heritage’ values.

A. The City of La Plata and the UNESCO World Heritage List ongoing nomination project.

1. Introducing the City of La Plata

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2. About the history preface: 2.1. Argentina’s National process after Independence: The territorial planning process of the region Pampeana, the City of Buenos Aires as the Capital of the Country and La Plata as the Capital City of the Province of Buenos Aires 2.2. The first 100 years of the new Capital city

81 92

B. Understanding grid values.

1. The grid as a political instrument in the governing of territories 1.1. Grid and Plan

121 123

2. Towards 'Polis, Civitas and Urbs' interrelation

125

Case Studies: a. The Spanish colonial grids

128

3. About the policy context: 3.1. World Heritage and Heritage policies in Argentina 3.2. La Plata and the UNESCO World Heritage List's prior attempts 3.3. Cultural Heritage policy frame

99 100 106

4. La Plata’s ongoing World Heritage List Nomination project 4.1. “La Plata Cultural Landscape” initiative 4.2. Current stage of the Nomination Project

111 111 112

5. Stakeholder’s analysis

114

b. North America's foundational grids c. Manhattan’s grid d. Cerda’s Eixample in Barcelona

C. Towards La Plata’s 'Historic Urban Landscape' analysis.

1. Strategy & 'Polis, Civitas and Urbs' actions

1. La Plata and the Pampeana’s cities network: 1.1. The Region Pampeana: Topography and hydrography 1.2. The Pampeana city model and the cities foundation process between 1810 and 1910 1.3. Mobility and infrastructure 2. La Plata and the City of Buenos Aires 2.1. The City of Buenos Aires and its conurbanization relationship with La Plata 3. La Plata: 3.1. La Plata’s foundational plan 3.2 La Plata and the heritage systems 3.3. The 'Genius loci' of La Plata and the intangible dimension of the heritage systems 3.4. Mapping the city current urban landscape

129 130 131

134 136 140 144 146 150 152 156 160

A briefing: La Plata, 135 years of 'Polis, Civitas and Urbs' interrelation

164

CONCLUSION PART II

168

Envisioning actions for the conservation of La Plata’s urban heritage system and its territorial connection.

Case studies: a. Regional level: Catalunya’s Landscape Catalogue project b. Metropolitan level: Minneapolis and St. Paul c. Local level c.1. Barcelona Superilies (Superblock) Project c.2. High-line Park New York c.3. A Green Strategy for London (1991)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

172 182-183 182-183 184-185

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Abstract This thesis researches the evolution of urban conservation concepts through the analysis of the 1972 World Heritage Convention and UNESCO Recommendations that have represented the gradual progress of the urban conservation discussion regarding heritage “in urban contexts” towards a broader urban landscape approach. In this regard, this research focuses on the ‘2011 UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape’ as an approach which signifies a more inclusive vision of heritage and implies a comprehensive consideration of all the components of the urban landscape and their territoriality.

Moreover, this study centers its analysis on Latin America and the current challenges of the region to connect heritage and territory in different local contexts. In this sense, a case study is introduced: the city of La Plata, Capital of the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Traditionally, La Plata is indicated as one of the last planned cities that were founded by the end of the 19th Century. However, this city is more than a planned city. La Plata reflects the process of territorial governance that emerged after Argentina’s independence as a Spanish colony, its foundational plan represents the evolution of the territorial planning in the Pampeana region, and it evokes symbolically the holistic project pursued by Argentina to become a modern country at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th Century.

The city had been studied from historical disciplines and urban disciplines due to its foundational plan features. This thesis rather explores how the ‘Historical Urban Landscape’ approach can bring new inputs into the study of La Plata’s heritage values and its territorial connection. In doing so, it is developed an analysis that considers all the components of the city represented by the ‘polis’, ‘civitas’ and ‘urbs’ dimensions, interconnecting the study of urban policy, heritage policy, community participation and La Plata’s heritage systems. In this regard, this thesis aims to propose a strategy, envisioning actions for the valorization of La Plata’s heritage as an asset for sustainable development, and to promote initiatives in the region that seek to reinforce this strategy.

Questa tesi studia l‘evoluzione dei concetti di conservazione e patrimonio nell’ambito urbano attraverso l’analisi della Convenzione del Patrimonio Mondiale del 1972 (‘World Heritage Convention’) e le raccomandazioni UNESCO, che hanno rappresentato i passaggi di una discussione sul patrimonio nel “contesto urbano”, verso un più ampio approccio collegato all’idea di paesaggio urbano. In questo senso, la ricerca si focalizza sulle Raccomandazioni UNESCO relative al Paesaggio Urbano Storico (‘2011 UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape’) come un approccio che permette una considerazione complessiva del patrimonio storico, e di tutte le componenti del paesaggio urbano. A questo proposito, il lavoro di tesi si concentra sull’analisi dell’America Latina e l’attuale sfida di connettere patrimonio e territorio in diversi contesti locali, affrontando in modo particolare il caso della città di La Plata, capoluogo della Provincia di Buenos Aires, in Argentina.

Tradizionalmente La Plata è conosciuta come una delle ultime città di fondazione, costruita alla fine del XIX secolo.

Ciò nonostante, questa città rappresenta anche il processo di governo del territorio emerso dopo l’indipendenza dell’Argentina dalla Spagna e l’evoluzione della progettazione territoriale nella regione Pampeana. Il suo impianto evoca infatti simbolicamente il progetto perseguito dall’Argentina, a cavallo del XIX e XX secolo, per diventare un paese moderno. Per questo motivo, La Plata è stata studiata da un punto di vista storico e urbanistico per il suo particolare impianto quale città di fondazione e per il suo sviluppo nel corso del tempo. Questa tesi esplora invece le possibilità offerte dall’approccio del ‘Paesaggio Urbano Storico’ (‘Historic Urban Landscape’ approach) applicate allo studio del patrimonio della città di La Plata e del suo rapporto con il territorio, considerndo le dimensioni di ‘polis’, ‘civitas’, e ‘urbs’ della città, attraverso l’analisi dei piani urbanistici, i regolamenti relativi al patrimonio storico, le attività partecipative e il patrimonio storico esistente. Questa tesi proporre infine una strategia per la valorizzazione del patrimonio della città e del suo rapporto con la sua regione.

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Introduction Motivations & Goals.

This thesis stems from a personal interest in Latin American cities, the importance of History in Architecture and urban disciplines, and the strong relationship between the conservation of urban identity with the level of social awareness regarding heritage and planning for sustainable urban development and for a better quality of life.

Due to these interests, during the development of my Master studies, I looked for a Thesis topic related to the subjects that over the years had particularly fascinated me, for example ‘Heritage Preservation Law’, ‘Historic Preservation Planning’ and ‘Urban and Landscape Design’. Moreover, the Mantuan UNESCO Chair of Architectural Preservation and Planning in World Heritage Cities encouraged me to outline a research thesis in this matter.

In May 2016, I became aware of the project that would seek to inscribe the City of La Plata into the UNESCO World Heritage List. This situation represented a departure point for the initial idea of this thesis. Moreover, from November 2016 to March 2017, I had the opportunity to attend an internship at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris at the World Heritage Centre, in the Latin American and the Caribbean department. This opportunity certainly provided me with the occasion to enrich knowledge on the matters related to the thesis directly from UNESCO. In this regard, this thesis research intends to be the result of this personal journey.

Finally, this research aims to promote future initiatives that would pursue a broader analysis of the urban landscape, the dynamics of urban conservation and heritage planning, leading to society awareness renewal regarding heritage values, and how they influence social identity and quality of life.

Structure of the thesis.

Part I constitutes a general research on the gradual evolution of the urban conservation discussion regarding Heritage “in urban context” and the evolution of the heritage concept towards a broader landscape approach that implies the consideration of all the components of the urban landscape and its territorial analysis. This evolution is studied by looking at the progression of the urban discipline and the international urban conservation concepts from 1972 World Heritage Convention to nowadays. In this regard this part is addressed by the analysis of different Case Studies and one practical case located in Latin America.

Firstly, Part I_A analyses the key notions to understand the World Heritage Convention and the World Heritage List, the concept of Cultural Heritage for the Word Heritage Convention and the way it has adapted through the evolution of the Heritage concept and the urban conservation discussion.

Particularly, the research focusses its attention on the ‘2011 UNESCO Recommendation on Historic Urban Landscape’ as an approach for the management of World Heritage Properties and for the analysis of urban landscapes. This approach turns the attention into a broad view, taking into consideration the built environment, intangible heritage, cultural diversity, socio-economic and environmental factors.

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Furthermore, Part I_B analyzes the World Cultural Heritage in “urban context” in Latin American and the Caribbean Region. Three different Case Studies are considered to reflect, the time of their inscription, the ‘spirit of their time’ in international urban conservation policy, as well as, the challenges regarding the relationship between the protected area and their surrounding territorialities.

Part II of this thesis introduces a practical case of analysis: The city of La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

La Plata was planned and founded as the Capital City of the Province of Buenos Aires and it is part of a network of over more than a hundred towns and cities planned and built in the vast plain landscape of the Pampeana Region. Its design represents the systematization and modernization of the ‘Pampena’s city model’ and the territorial planning in this region; evoking the holistic project done by Argentina in the 19th Century to become a Modern Country.

In this regard, the case was taken as a starting point for the analysis of the prior attempts and the ongoing UNESCO World Heritage List Nomination project as an opportunity to think over the ‘urban heritage values’ of the city and, the ‘Historic Urban Landscape’ as an approach of analysis. This part presents the idea of ‘polis’, ‘civitas’ and ‘urbs’ dimensions to interrelate reflections about urban policy, community participation and La Plata’s heritage systems.

Part II_A presents the City of La Plata in its historical context. Moreover, it analyses the heritage policy context and the urban planning policies on a Local, Provincial and National level.

This part introduces the prior nomination attempts and, the ongoing World Heritage List Nomination project as an opportunity to understand the dynamics of a Nomination process and the history of the city. This reflection embodies the analysis of La Plata’s urban conservation policies, the social context and, future proposals for La Plata heritage values conservation.

Furthermore, because of La Plata’s foundational plan features, Part II_B introduces the analysis of the grid as an instrument for the governing of the territory. Four Case Studies address the different interactions between the grid/plan and the political-social relations behind them.

Part II_C analyses La Plata’s heritage systems and its territorial connection by developing an initial analysis on the ‘Historical Urban Landscape’ approach.

To conclude, this thesis proposes a strategy for the conservation and the valorization of La Plata’s urban heritage and its territorial connection in the context of the possible World Heritage inscription and beyond. Different Case Studies that follow the ‘Historic Urban Landscape’ approach are analyzed as good practices to support different urban heritage actions.

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Part I

Urban Conservation discussion on International Policy towards a broadening perception of ‘Historic Urban Landscape’ approach

Part I_ A

Analyzing World Heritage Convention concepts and the evolution of UNESCO recommendations

Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

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A brief look at the World Heritage Convention

Part I_ A

_1_A brief look at the World Heritage Convention

In the middle of the 20th Century the World Wars had left behind a panorama of destruction in the occidental world that evidenced the importance of the creation of an international institution to build and promote peace between the Humanity. With this aim, in 1945, different Nations signed the Chart of the United Nations (UN) to “contribute to the peace and security promoting the collaboration between the Nations (…)”1. In this context, one year later, in 1946 it was created an international institution to promote Culture and Education called United Nations for Education, Science and Culture Organization (UNESCO).

Upon UNESCO creation led the foundation of other international institutions to support directly or indirectly UN and UNESCO in the Culture field. Among these Institutions, it was created the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) and, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS). Besides, the increasing awareness toward the conservation of nature and ecology evidenced the necessity of an international institution to deal with these concerns. For this reason, in 1948, it was created the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

In the early 1960s UNESCO international campaign to preserve Abu Simbel and Filé temples from destruction heighten the importance of international cooperation between countries for the conservation of the human values that transcend the importance of a Nation to belong to the Humanity. In this campaign, the Abu Simbel and Philae temples were dismantled, moved to dry ground and reassembled stone by stone. The costs of this enterprise were covered by the mutual collaboration of fifty countries, and evidenced the importance of the universal value of some cultural heritage to be recognized by all Nations. This success led to other safeguarding campaigns, such as saving Venice, Moenjodaro and restoring Borobodur.

Due to the campaigns success, UNESCO initiated with the help of the ICOMOS, the preparation of a draft of the project of a future “Convention for the International Protection of Monuments, Groups of Buildings and Places of Universal Value”.

As well, by 1968, IUCN was working on a document for a “Convention for the Conservation of the world natural legacy values”. This proposal was presented to the 1972 United Nations Conference on Human Environment in Stockholm.

However, in that same year, at the 16th UNESCO Convention, the Committee decided to order the elaboration of a project for the “Convention for the Protection of Natural and Cultural Heritage” to be treated during the next General Conference in 1972. The works made by UNESCO in collaboration with ICOMOS and IUCN, regarding Cultural and Natural conservation was merged into a single text and eventually it was agreed upon by all parties concerned.

The World Heritage Convention concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage was adopted by the UNESCO General Conference on 16 November 1972 and it represented the first international legal system that protects World Heritage and it merged the efforts for the conservation of cultural and natural values that should be treated as part of the heritage of all mankind.

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

In this regard, the idea of World Heritage born from two main notions: the consensus of international cooperation and the concept of universal value which evidence heritage as a legacy with the past to be passed on to future generations.

1972 World Heritage Convention, hereinafter referred as the Convention, represents a huge step in the Conservation field because for the first time in history it was established a system of international responsibility in conserving and monitoring the evolution of sites considered to be of Outstanding Universal Value to transcend national boundaries recognition by being of common importance for present and future generations of all humanity.

The mechanism established that by signing the Convention each Nation becomes a State Party of it.

This organization works to prevent that “Without the support of other countries, some of the world’s outstanding cultural and natural sites would deteriorate or, worse, disappear (…)”2. The Convention embraced the concept of Sustainable Development, as an agreement ratified almost universally, that aims to secure the necessary financial and intellectual resources to protect Natural and Cultural World Heritage Sites.

To guarantee this aim, the system led to the establishment of the World Heritage List in which the Convention defines the kind of sites which can be considered for the list inscription. Moreover, it sets out the duties of the Nations in the identification of their potential sites and their role in protecting and preserving them. For these reasons, being part of the World Heritage List represents the recognition of universal value and at the same point, a State Party’s duty on behalf its conservation as a World Heritage property3.

1.1. How does the Convention work?

The World Heritage List represents a way through a system to put into effect the World Heritage Convention, in which it is defined the criteria and the conditions for the inscription, how it would be the Outstanding Universal Value evaluation and a guide to help the State Parties with the sites protection and management.

To guarantee the Convention system development and its control exists a special committee call World Heritage Committee, hereinafter referred as the Committee. This committee hold meetings every year and it is the responsible of the implementation of the World Heritage Convention.

During UNESCO General Conference, UNESCO State Parties’ members hold once every two years a General Assembly to discuss the issues to be treat in the next Conference, the budget for the next years and, as well, the election of the 21 members of the World Heritage Committee.

One of the Committee functions is the definition of how the World Heritage Fund would be used and managed and, under what conditions financial International Assistance for World Heritage may be provided.

As well, the Committee is the responsible of the examination of the Periodic Reporting process which provides an assessment of the application of the Convention by the States Parties. These reports allow to update the information about the sites in the World Heritage List and to identify possible changes in the state of conservation of them. These periodic reports are submitted by the States Parties and they are prepared on a regional basis strategy that is examined by the Committee on a pre-established schedule of a six-year cycle that is presented into UNESCO General Conference.

Finally, the Committee decide whether site is inscribed or not in the World Heritage List, as well as the inclusion or removal of a site into the List of World Heritage in Danger.

To make this system possible and due to the cooperation nature of the Convention, it is defined the role for each component that would determinate the duties relation between the State Parties which have signed the Convention, the World Heritage Centre as the secretariat on behalf of UNESCO Culture Sector, and the Advisory Bodies (ICOMOS, IUCN and ICCROM) which would provide technical assessment and support.

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A brief look at the World Heritage Convention

Furthermore, the International Law condition of the Convention established statutory documents that guided the implementation of the Convention as “hard law” resolutions to assurance its operation and implementation. The Convention document itself represents a legal implication with the international community that have signed it. As well, upon all parts concerned, other statutory documents were stablished for the implementation on the system that regulates it.

1.1.1. The Operational Guidelines.

The main statutory document that defined the implementation of the Convention is the “Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention” hereinafter referred as Operational Guidelines. This document aimed at guiding the process inscription of properties on the World Heritage List and regulates possible inclusion into the List of World Heritage in Danger. It is the main working tool for the protection and conservation of World Heritage Sites. Moreover, it grants the application of International Assistance under the World Heritage Fund and stipulates the mobilization of national and international support in favor of the Convention4.

While 1972 World Heritage Convention was never modified, the Operational Guidelines are periodically revised. The modifications produced by these reviews expressed the necessities of the World Heritage Committee that are defined in each General Assembly. These modifications highlight the acceptance of the worldwide changes into heritage concepts. For example, since the Operational Guidelines were written, it has changed through an initial number of 28 paragraphs to 256 paragraphs and annexes that are included today.

Evolution of the Operational Guidelines In Conti, 2009 he describes the evolution of the operational guidelines in relation to urban conservation.

In this respect he pointed: “ a) 1978-1983. The first edition of the Guidelines dates from 1977 and was applied for the first nominations. At that time the requirements for nominations were broadly broad: the criteria for demonstrating exceptional universal value had been defined and, in general terms, States Parties were requested to report on the state of conservation of the good and its possible comparison with others Similar. In the editions of 1980 and 1983 were added, gradually, some details related to declaration of value, authenticity, protection and management. b) 1984-1987. The update of the Guidelines dated 1984 introduced some new developments with respect to previous editions. For the first time, the requirement to delimit the zone nominated for inclusion in the List appeared, as well as to specify the measures and degrees of protection inside the List as in neighboring areas. In 1987 the classification of urban goods was added, which, without major differences, has continued to this day. As of this year, it was necessary to provide details of the protection instruments as well as the administrative structures responsible for the management, while requesting information about actions that could imply real or potential risks, such as subsoil exploitation, urban fabric, increased height of buildings and demolitions. c) 1988-1997. For nearly a decade, successive revisions to the Guidelines have broadly maintained the requirements set out in the 1987 edition. A new text was introduced in 1996 which introduced further clarification of the above: the term “ buffer zone “(bufferzone) while demanding the exact delimitation of the nominated and damping zones. At the same time, the idea of including in the nomination files a statement of meaning in which the State party specified the attributes of the exceptional universal value of the nominee goods was clearly stated. On the other hand, the identification of risk factors (with a scheme that continues to the present) and the section dedicated to monitoring (monitoring) were specifically introduced. d) 1998-2005. The edition of the Guidelines adopted by the World Heritage Committee from 1997 continued until the edition dated February 2005, where a revision was carried out which, with some minor modifications, is currently applied. In the current edition, the classification of goods by categories has become part of Annex 3, while more details are offered regarding the application of criteria of authenticity, incorporating the text of the Declaration of Nara on Authenticity (ICOMOS, 1994).” (Conti, 2009)5

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

The constant revision has progress to guarantee a better protection and management of the World Heritage properties. Moreover, it shows the achievement of the evolution of heritage concept from its “monument” conception forward the continuing broadening perception of heritage values that have been discussed in 45 years since the World Heritage Convention was established.

1.1.2. State Parties, World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies The State Parties States Parties have the responsibility to identify, nominate and protect the Outstanding Universal Value of their territory. As members of the Convention, they are encouraged to integrate the protection of the Cultural and Natural Heritage into regional planning programs, set up staff and services at their sites, undertake scientific and technical conservation research and adopt measures which give this heritage a function in the day-to-day life of its community.

They are encouraged to submit to the Committee an inventory of properties suitable for the inscription on the World Heritage List.

Once the States Parties have sites inscribed into the World Heritage List, it is their obligation to regularly prepare reports about the state of conservation and the various protection measures put in place at the World Heritage Property inscribed in their territory. These reports allow the World Heritage Committee to assess the conditions at the sites and, eventually, to decide on the necessity of adopting specific measures to resolve recurrent problems.

As well, they are encouraged to participate and attend the World Heritage Committee, contribute into the World Heritage Fund and foster the international collaboration between States.

Finally, it is important to mention that the status that comes from being a State Party to the Convention and having sites inscribed on the World Heritage List often serves to promote to raise awareness about conservation. By signing the Convention, each Nation pledges to conserve not only the World Heritage situated on its territory, but also to protect its national heritage. However, the protection of national heritage is not Convention duty.

The Advisory Bodies As its named indicate, the main role of the Advisory Bodies is to advise on the implementation of the Convention. The institutions that composed them are: The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) for Cultural Heritage advice, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) for Natural Heritage advise. As well, a third Advisory Body is the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), an intergovernmental organization which provides the Committee with expert advice on conservation of cultural sites, as well as on training activities.

In the World Heritage List nomination process, a nominated property is independently evaluated by two Advisory Bodies mandated by the World Heritage Convention: ICOMOS and IUCN, which respectively provide the World Heritage Committee with evaluations of cultural and of natural sites nominated.

Furthermore, the activities done by the Advisory Bodies comprehend the assistance to the World Heritage Centre in the preparation of the Committee’s documentation, assistance into the definition of the Global Strategy for a Balance and Credible World Heritage List, the Global Training Strategy, Periodic Reporting and the effective use of the World Heritage Fund by reviewing International Assistance requests.

Moreover, they monitored the state of conservation of the World Heritage properties, by doing Reactive Monitoring Missions which are commanded by the Committee or, Advisory Missions which are requested as invitation by the State Parties. Finally, they attend the World Heritage Committee meetings in an advisory capacity.

The World Heritage Centre The World Heritage Centre is the permanent secretariat of the Convention. It was established in 1992 and it works as coordinator within UNESCO for all matters related to World Heritage. It forms part of the

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A brief look at the World Heritage Convention

UNESCO Culture Sector.

As a neutral entity between the State Parties and the Advisory Bodies, the World Heritage Centre main function is to ensure day-to-day management of the Convention. In accordance with Article 14 of the Convention, which says that “the World Heritage Centre assists the World Heritage Committee, notably by organizing its statutory meetings, developing and proposing policy on its behalf and actively ensuring the implementation of activities in accordance with its decisions and in cooperation with the States Parties and the Advisory Bodies”6.

It aids States Parties on the preparation of tentative lists and nominations to the World Heritage List and guarantees receipt, registration, archiving and transmission to ICOMOS and/or IUCN. As well it coordinates the Periodic Reporting process; it co-ordinate and conduct with the Advisory Bodies the Reactive Monitoring Missions or participate in the Advisory Missions. Also, it co-ordinate the International Assistance application or the mobilization of extra-budgetary resources.

Moreover, it provides co-ordination to guarantee the implementation of the studies and activities which support the UNESCO Global Strategy for a balanced, representative and credible World Heritage List and guarantee the promotion of the World Heritage Convention.

1.1.3. The steps of the World Heritage List Nomination process The Tentative List “The first step a country must take is making an ‘inventory’ of its important natural and cultural heritage sites located within its boundaries. This ‘inventory’ is known as the Tentative List, and provides a forecast of the properties that a State Party may decide to submit for inscription in the next five to ten years and which may be updated at any time”7.

States Parties are encouraged to prepare their Tentative Lists with the participation of a wide variety of stakeholders: site managers, local and regional governments, local communities, NGOs and other interested parties and partners.

It is an important step since the World Heritage Committee cannot consider a nomination for inscription on the World Heritage List unless the property has already been included on the State Party’s Tentative List. In this sense, Tentative Lists must be submitted to the Secretariat, at least one year prior to the submission of any nomination. Moreover, the Convention encourage to re-examine and re-submit their Tentative List at least every ten years.

The nomination file After preparing a Tentative List and selecting sites from it, a State Party decide when to present the nomination file. This file needs to be as exhaustive as possible, including all the necessary documentation and maps that are required to understand which the area represents the Outstanding Universal Value and which area would represent its buffer zone that would secure the World Heritage values. The World Heritage Centre offers advice and assistance to the State Party in preparing this file in with a process of review and checking on its completeness. Once the nomination file is complete the World Heritage Centre sends it to the appropriate Advisory Bodies for evaluation.

The Advisory Bodies evaluation A complete nomination file is sent to the Advisory Bodies for its evaluation. In case of Cultural Heritage, it would be sent to ICOMOS; in cases in which is necessary special evaluation about preservation and restoration, the file is sent to ICCROM. For Natural Heritage nominations, the file is sent for its evaluation to IUCN. While Mixed nominations are sent either ICOMOS and IUCN. The World Heritage Committee Once a site has been nominated and evaluated by the Advisory Bodies, the site is up to the intergovernmental World Heritage Committee to make the final decision on its inscription. On his annual meeting, the Committee decide which sites will be inscribed on the World Heritage List. It can also

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

postpone its decision and request further information about the site or it can even reject the inscription.

Protection and management of World Heritage Sites Inscribing a site on the World Heritage List is the beginning of history of continuously work towards managing, monitoring and preserving the World Heritage properties between site managers and local authorities.

States Parties have an obligation to regularly prepare reports about the state of conservation and the various protection measures put in place at their sites. These reports allow the World Heritage Committee to assess the conditions at the sites and, eventually, to decide on the necessity of adopting specific measures to resolve recurrent problems, like the inscription of a property on the List of World Heritage in Danger.

To safeguard the Outstanding Universal Value of the World Heritage, the State Party is encouraged to include into the nomination file the definition of a buffer zone serves to provide an additional layer of protection to a World Heritage property8. The inclusion of buffer zone was not mandatory until 1996.

The upstream process Since 2010, upon considering the difficulties experienced with some challenging nominations, a new concept was introduced in the World Heritage List Nomination Process: the Upstream Process. This process is innovative in that it enables the Advisory Bodies and the Secretariat to provide advance support in the form of advice, consultation and analysis, directly to States Parties prior to the preparation or submission of a nomination. The main aim of the Upstream Process is to reduce significant problems encountered during the evaluation process for more challenging nominations.

This process reinforce the Global Strategy adopted in 1994 to encourage countries to become States Parties to the Convention, to prepare Tentative Lists and to prepare nominations of properties from categories and regions currently not well-represented on the World Heritage List. To further enhance the underrepresented categories of sites and improve geographical coverage, the Committee limits the number of nominations that can be presented by each State Party and the number of nominations it will review during its session.

1.2. Important concepts for ‘World Heritage List’ Outstanding Universal Value The World Heritage Convention defines the concept Outstanding Universal Value as a “cultural and/or natural significance which is so exceptional as to transcend national boundaries and to be of common importance for present and future generations of all humanity. As such, the permanent protection of this heritage is of the highest importance to the international community as a whole”9.

The Outstanding Universal Value, represent one of the main concepts defined for the inscription into the World Heritage List because it determinates the Site’s universal importance that would be recognized by UNESCO by entering the list.

The selection criteria To be included in the World Heritage List, sites must be of Outstanding Universal Value and meet at least one item of the selection criteria.

“These items are expressed by the following criteria:

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(i)

represent a masterpiece of human creative genius and cultural significance;

(ii)

exhibit an important interchange of human values, over a span of time, or within a cultural area of the world, on developments in architecture or technology, monumental arts, townplanning, or landscape design;

(iii)

bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization

A brief look at the World Heritage Convention

which is living or which has disappeared; (iv)

be outstanding example of a type of building, architectural, or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates a significant stage in human history;

(v)

be outstanding example of a traditional human settlement, land-use, or sea-use which is representative of a culture, or human interaction with the environment especially when it has become vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change;

(vi)

be directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance;

(vii)

contains superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance;

(viii)

be outstanding example representing major stages of Earth’s history, including the record of life, significant on-going geological processes in the development of landforms, or significant geomorphic or physiographic features;

(ix)

be outstanding example representing significant on-going ecological and biological processes in the evolution and development of terrestrial, fresh water, coastal and marine ecosystems, and communities of plants and animals;

(x)

contains the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity, including those containing threatened species of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation”10.

This criterion is regularly revised to reflect the concept of World Heritage itself. Because of this, in 2005, the Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention were revised and the selection criteria changed its structure from a division of six items for Cultural Heritage and four for Natural Heritage, into a unique set of ten items reflecting the worldwide perception of concepts such as Cultural Landscape into the process of heritage conservation.

Notes 1. Fragment of the United Nations Charther, 1945.

2. World Heritage Information Kit, UNESCO, 2005.

3. From another hand, in case an inscribed property is threatened by a danger, the property could be placed into the World Heritage List in Danger; and in case the Outstanding Universal Value is damaged or destroyed it can be delete from the World Heritage List.

4. Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention, UNESCO. (2016). Page 1.

5. Fragment of the article: Conti, A. L. (2009). Ciudades históricas patrimonio mundial en américa latina y el caribe. Thesis author translation.

6. Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention, UNESCO. (2016). Page 6.

7. World Heritage Information Kit, UNESCO, 2005.

8."International Expert meeting on World Heritage and buffer zones". UNESCO World Heritage Convention. Retrieved 24 Nov 2010.

Background and contents.

9. Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention, UNESCO. (2016). Page 10. Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention, UNESCO. (2016). Page 1 10. World Heritage Information Kit, UNESCO, 2005.

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26

Cultural Heritage as category in the World Heritage List

Part I_ A

_2_Cultural Heritage as a category at the World Heritage List

Cultural heritage is a concept without one strictly definition; even nowa¬days it is still with different theorization according to different historical periods and from different points of view. As a semantic combination of two concepts, it merges culture and heritage. Heritage which 'has always been produced by people according to their contemporary concerns and experiences' (Harvey, 2001) of transforming power relationships on emerging national (or other) identities. And, Culture understood as all the expressions produce by people.

However, starting in the mid-1970s, international documents were drawn up to define Cultural Heritage into the general criteria, with the aim of codifying in all the documents, tangible or intangible expressions of human action which, having acquired a value, need to be protected.

In regard of this Chapter discussion, towards World Heritage List inscription, articles 1 and 2 of the 1972 World Heritage Convention define what kind of sites can be listed as World Heritage and distinguish into Cultural Heritage (Article 1) and, Natural Heritage (Article 2).

“For the purpose of this Convention, the following shall be considered as "cultural heritage": monuments: architectural works, works of monumental sculpture and painting, elements or structures of an archaeological nature, inscriptions, cave dwellings and combinations of features, which are of outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art or science; groups of buildings: groups of separate or connected buildings which, because of their architecture, their homogeneity or their place in the landscape, are of outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art or science; sites: works of man or the combined works of nature and man, and areas including archaeological sites which are of outstanding universal value from the historical, aesthetic, ethnological or anthropological point of view1”.

2.1 ‘Monuments’, ‘Site’ and ‘Group of buildings’ Cultural Heritage classification at the 1972 World Heritage Convention should be read in the time spirit and context of the begging of the 1970s. The “monuments, group of buildings and sites” focused on a tangible idea of heritage, that in this case, just followed an idea that should not be understood as Cultural Heritage concept, but only as a classification.

As well, this classification reflects the universality nature of the Convention used for the World Heritage inscription and, due to its tangible dimension it can be defined as well as “Cultural Property”. In this regard, this physical idea of heritage would be recognized in each definition of “monuments, group of buildings and sites” to specify different typologies of World Heritage.

Nevertheless, Cultural Heritage for the World Heritage inscription is more than a classification. The Outstanding Universal Value that defines the World Heritage values of an inscription reflects a broader concept of Cultural Heritage, linking this rigid classification system with issues such as vernacular herita-

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

ge, the intangible dimension of heritage and the communities. This situation is possible because of the flexible nature of the Operational Guidelines that guide the implementation of the Convention. In this sense, while the Convention itself is essentially set in stone, the flexibility of the Operational Guidelines, through which the provisions and principles of the Convention are implemented, reflect the evolution of notions and processes and include new ones. (…) the aim is not only to preserve increasingly numerous items of cultural property but also to safeguard complexes which go far beyond single large monuments or individual buildings. The idea of the heritage has now been broadened to include both the human and the natural environment, both architectural complexes and archaeological sites, not only the rural heritage and the countryside but also the urban, technical or industrial heritage, industrial design and street furniture. Furthermore, the preservation of the cultural heritage now covers the non-physical cultural heritage, which includes the signs and symbols passed on by oral transmission, artistic and literary forms of expression, languages, ways of life, myths, beliefs and rituals, value systems and traditional knowledge and know-how2.

In this regard, in 2002, ICOMOS defined Cultural Heritage as “an expression of the ways of living developed by a community and passed on from generation to generation, including customs, practices, places, objects, artistic expressions and values. Cultural Heritage is often expressed as either Intangible or Tangible Cultural Heritage”3. This definition shows the constantly evolving perceptions resulting in ever increasing diversity of all mankind and, it shows that Cultural Heritage is indeed a wide concept.

2.2. ‘Cultural Landscape’ as a type of Cultural Heritage at the World Heritage List.

As it was explained in the previous chapter, the Convention brought together Cultural and Natural sites under one framework, however, initially there were no mechanism that would show the result of the interaction between Cultural and Natural values4.

In this regard, the concept of landscape inherited by the artistic perception of the environment in the past centuries broadened its definition due to a geographical approach that defined landscape as the natural environment shaped by human interaction. This approach became field of study and scientific research in the 20th Century and, by 1925 the Geographer Carl Sauer, developed the concept of ‘Cultural Landscape’ further through his theory Morphology of the Landscape. This concept define landscape ‘as an area of natural features, modified and influenced by cultural forces. [This approach] included intangible values and cultural expressions not immediately evident, such as literature, poetry, painting and photography, rituals and traditional production. The key values of a landscape territory could be therefore assessed through research and documented through the evidence of associative connections’ (Sauer, 1925).

In 1992 the World Heritage Committee recognized the importance of Cultural Landscape concept and created the first international legal instrument to protect them by adopting the guidelines concerning their inclusion in the World Heritage List. The Committee acknowledged that cultural landscapes represent the "combined works of nature and of man designated in Article 1 of the Convention”. The term cultural landscape embraces a diversity of manifestations of the interaction between humankind and its natural environment and, illustrates the evolution of human society and settlement over time, under the influence of the physical constraints and/or opportunities presented by their natural environment and of successive social, economic and cultural forces, both external and internal.

‘Cultural landscapes are at the interface between nature and culture, tangible and intangible heritage, biological and cultural diversity—they represent a closely woven net of relationships, the essence of culture and people’s identity. Cultural landscapes are a focus of protected areas in a larger ecosystem context, and they are a symbol of the growing recognition of the fundamental links between local communities and their heritage, humankind and its natural environment’ (Rössler, 2006).

Moreover, the Committee recognized that the protection of cultural landscapes can contribute to the continued existence of traditional forms of land-use supports biological diversity in many regions of the world and, the modern techniques of sustainable land-use can maintain or enhance natural values in the landscape. The inclusion of Cultural Landscapes on the World Heritage List was possible thanks to the flexible nature of the Operational Guidelines. In this sense, in the Article 46 of the Operational

28

Cultural Heritage as category in the World Heritage List

Guidelines (2016) is written: “Cultural landscapes are cultural properties and represent the "combined works of nature and of man" designated in Article 1 of the Convention. They are illustrative of the evolution of human society and settlement over time, under the influence of the physical constraints and/ or opportunities presented by their natural environment and of successive social, economic and cultural forces, both external and internal”.

Furthermore, the Convention, as an international legal tool (that would classified properties) and throught out the Committee adopted three categories of Cultural Landscapes as qualifying for listing: ‘Garden’, ‘Organic’ and ‘Associative’: “(i). The most easily identifiable is the clearly defined landscape designed and created intentionally by man. This embraces garden and parkland landscapes constructed for aesthetic reasons which are often (but not always) associated with religious or other monumental buildings and ensembles. (ii). The second category is the organically evolved landscape. This results from an initial social, economic, administrative, and/or religious imperative and has developed its present form by association with and in response to its natural environment. Such landscapes reflect that process of evolution in their form and component features. They fall into two sub-categories: - a relict (or fossil) landscape is one in which an evolutionary process came to an end at some time in the past, either abruptly or over a period. Its significant distinguishing features are, however, still visible in material form.

- a continuing landscape is one which retains an active social role in contemporary society closely associated with the traditional way of life, and in which the evolutionary process is still in progress. At the same time, it exhibits significant material evidence of its evolution over time. (iii). the final category is the associative cultural landscape. The inclusion of such landscapes on the World Heritage List is justifiable by virtue of the powerful religious, artistic or cultural associations of the natural element rather than material cultural evidence, which may be insignificant or even absent”5.

The three categories of World Heritage Cultural Landscapes adopted by the Committee were included in 1992 in the Paragraph 39 of the Operational Guidelines (2002) which was described in Appendix 2.

In 2005 and again in 2008 the Operational Guidelines were revised and all categories of heritage were included in Annex III of the Operational Guidelines. The definition however, was not changed6.

This situation showed the evolution of the management of the concept itself inside of the Convention due to the progressively inscription of challenging sites. For example, in 2001, the Government of Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador and Peru launched the initiative to inscribe on the World Heritage List the Qhapaq Nan ‘Camino Principal Andino’ (Main Andean Road) which passes through these six countries. This initiative was finally inscribed in the List in 2012, showing the complexity to guarantee such an enterprise. However, it promotes the inclusion into the List of transboundary Cultural Landscapes.

The inclusion of the Cultural Landscape concept in the World Heritage discussion has represent one of the most important evolution into the implementation of the Convention, it has led to other discussions like the UNESCO Global Strategy which its main objective is to achieve a credible, balanced and representative World Heritage List. Because of this, as fundamental basis of credibility is representativeness, the Global Strategy encourage on the exploration of themes that were little discussed until now and that would reflect the Outstanding Universal Values unrepresented in the List.

2.2.1. Are cities Cultural Landscapes?

From a conceptual point of view, a city constitutes a cultural landscape, since it implies the maximum intervention on the natural environment to adapt it to the human-kind need living in community. However, one of the topics that has been intensely debated in recent years is whether to include cities or urban areas as Cultural Heritage as Cultural Landscapes in the World Heritage List.

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

The characterization of cities as "groups of buildings", as stipulated in Article 1 of the Convention is clearly insufficient to include all the complexity of the urban organism. In this sense, ‘such discourse in turn supports the notion that understand landscape as a cultural construct reflecting human values: essentially the cultural landscape concept. Its significance in the urban sphere is that it allows us to see and understand the approach to urban conservation concentrating on individual buildings as ‘devoid of the socio-spatial context’ and can lead to a deterioration of the wider urban physical fabric’ (Bandarin & Van Oers, 2014).

Although the major theme supporting an inscription as Cultural Landscapes is the interaction between culture and nature and, its association between people and the natural elements; this association is not mentioned with association to the city ‘urban landscape’ values. Even if culture-nature phenomenon is the ‘reason’ for the physical morphology of the city or a huge contributor to it or, if it is reflected as well in the urban landscape relation within the urban form and the city identity, showing that natural elements contribute to the urban spirit of place, as well as shaping the city's morphology and its legibility.

In which, the form of the physical landscape ‘natural and created’ is tangible, but equally intangible, full of inner meanings.

Furthermore, the urban cultural landscape is therefore the inhabited landscape, the physical and intangible world that people participate in directly, modifying it according to their needs, aspirations and means (Harvey, 2001). In this sense, is important to understand the significance of the cultural landscape paradigm in urban conservation is that landscapes are nor static entities (Taylor, 2012). It supposes a stream of time7 and, at the cultural context, the human activity and the human action change over time.

In this context the discussion if cities are cultural landscapes, had contributed into the Urban Conser-

Figure 1. Great Wall of China [Source: Flirckr photos]

30

Cultural Heritage as category in the World Heritage List

Figure 2. Chakitaqlla (Andean foot plough) [Source: UNESCO Website]

vation discussion started in 2003 about "historic urban landscapes" which paved the way for a new approach to the conservation and management of urban heritage, culminating in the adoption of a '2011 UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape'. Although it specifies that the 'Historical Urban Landscape' does not constitute a patrimonial category and that it should not be confused with the notion of Cultural Landscape, the new vision offers a broader and more comprehensive approach to urban conservation, understanding the city and its urban landscape as the result of a series of layers that have been developed over time and which includes natural and cultural, material and immaterial components (Conti, 2011). This approach opens the field of analysis regarding urban conservation discussion even more.

Notes 1. 1972 World Heritage Convention, page 2.

2. Jokilehto, J., (2005) Definitions of Cultural Heritage, References to Documents in History (Originally for ICCROM, 1990), Revised for CIF: 15 January 2005.

3. 2002, ICOMOS. 4. Although, it was possible (and it is possible) to inscribe a site as ‘Mixed’ if the Outstanding Universal Value could be defined either by its Cultural Heritage or by its Natural Heritage. In this sense, the “properties shall be considered as "mixed cultural and natural heritage" if they satisfy a part or the whole of the definitions of both cultural and natural heritage laid out in Articles 1 and 2 of the Convention”. Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention, UNESCO, Edition 2016. Article 46.

Page 11.

5. Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention, UNESCO, Edition 2016. Page 11.

6. 2009, World Heritage Papers, Number 26. UNESCO World Heritage Centre 7. Kevin Lynch analysis on ‘What is time in this Place? Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press in 1972. The sense of continuity that tells the history of people, events and places, as a “stream of time”.

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

32

A brief history towards Urban Conservation

Part I_ A

_3_A brief history towards Urban Conservation

3.1. XIX Century: Heritage Conservation and urban interventions as a modern idea.

Although, the concept of ‘historic city as a heritage category in the modern sense have been define much later, towards the end of the XIXs and the first half of the XXs Century’ (…), ‘most of the modern concepts of heritage were developed 100 or 150 years ago by a group of theoreticians and administrators who view the preservation of monuments of the past as a pillar of social and cultural development’ (Bandarin & Van Oers, 2012).

In this sense, the emerge of the notion of heritage started with the notion of modern nations in Europe and their necessity to define their traditions and identities, and the “monuments” constituted a way to celebrate national’s victories and create traditions. This idea, started after the French Revolution, and in the beginning of the XIX Century nations as France or England had already created Commissions to deal with the increasing awareness about heritage preservation of their monuments and important buildings1.

This institutionalization shaped the modern conservation methodologies and practices and, important figures emerged to define what was heritage. For example, Victor Hugo (1802-1885), in France advocated for the ‘national love to the conservation of monuments’ in the modern society. While, William Morris (1834-1896), in England in 1877 wrote the first attempted of principles for conservation of ancient buildings, arts and craft movement.

From another hand, while this movement focused its attention on the monuments and buildings of the past, the industrial revolution had brought masses of people to the city where the living conditions, specially of the working classes were deplorable and the urban situation showed general decay. Because of this reason, thinkers, philanthropist and social reformers gave rise to a wave of innovative and utopian experiments that leaded to social reforms that were progressively reflected on the urban condition. For example, the ‘Hygienist Movement’ that intended to remedy the unsanitary condition of the historic city and its inhabitants.

In this regard, by the middle of the XIXs Century cities become the scenery of public policies concerned to address the power of the state, the modernization of the industrial era, the new transportation systems, the residential needs of the bourgeoisie and the improvements of the living conditions of the working class like better housing or sanitarian infrastructure, that would allow as well, easier military control.

The main example of this situation was Baron Haussman2 urban interventions in the city of Paris, where the demolition and renewal of entire parts of the city fabric have represented a crucial point in the future of western urban conditions3 and for the future of an emerging urban discipline.

In this sense, either the ‘romantic’ approach about heritage conservation to avoid ongoing modernization or the destruction produced by the industrial revolution4, or the ‘ideal interventionism’ to rebuild the complete state of a monument5, or the hygienist interventions, have represent an important point of the history of the heritage conservation discussion. Moreover, this situation, together with the emerging figure of thinkers and practitioners of an emergent urban discipline, have set the base for the future ‘Urban Conservation’ idea.

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

Figure 3. John Ruskin Paint, Notre Dame Paris [Source: http://trianarts.com]

34

A brief history towards Urban Conservation

3.2. The common origins of urban disciplines and the urban conservation.

At the turn of the XXs Century the scene for the future ideas on urban conservation were conceived by the parallel definition of the concept of ‘historical city’ emerged by the necessity to difference the old city from the new urban interventions and, the emerging discipline of ‘city planning’.

On this point, Camilo Sitte (1843-1903) was the first thinker who looked at the city as an historical continuum that would be understood morphologically and typologically so as to deduct rules and models that would be useful for the development of a ‘modern city’. Moreover, his ideas have constituted an important step for the future of the urban conservation policies because for the first-time urban conservation was consider from an operational perspective.

In this respect, before the first World War, other European architects and thinkers followed Sitte’s ideas by changing the monumental idea behind heritage conservation to an approach in which the monuments were considered in their urban dimension and the city fabric was seen in a constant state of transformation. This approach certainly represented a contrast to the ideas done by Haussmann in Paris and all his world-wide followers.

Werner Hegemann(1881-1936), Patrick Geddes (1854-1932), Gustavo Giovannoni (1873-1947) and others, each one in its context and country have coined definitions and ideas that demonstrate that in this period, it can be trace back the origin of both modern ‘Urban Planning’ and ‘Urban Conservation’ disciplines. For example, Werner Hegemann studied the relationship between solid and voids to understand the physical outcome of the long-term processes that define the “manifesto” of the city development through time. As well as Geddes did it with the importance of understanding the spirit of the place, defining for first time the genius loci and merging the morphological analysis with the social context that would have set bases for a future understanding of civic education and cooperation in the urban discipline.

Moreover, another example can be the technical/practice approach define by Giovannoni, in which he stablished the methodology for the management and conservation of historic cities that even today constitutes the bases of the urban conservation practice (Zucconi, 2014). He understood that “urban environments require an approach to conservation similar to those adopted for individual monuments.

Within these basic principles, and respecting the urban morphologies and building typologies, it is admissible to develop a strategy of reintegration of missing parts, and de-densification (diradamento) of additions that prevent an adequate functionality of the urban fabric (Bandarin & Van Oers, 2012 citing Giovannoni). In this sense, he was strongly opposed to freeze the values of an historic center or to the creation of a specialized district used for tourism purposes. Because of this reason, he was the first to coin the term ‘urban heritage’ to recognize the heritage values beyond a monument to refer as well to the civic entities and the living expression of its historic evolution as heritage.

In this sense, the founding fathers of urban planning saw the city as an historical continuum and an environment connected to its wider territory and its social dimension. Since the theories of modern policies on urban conservation where originally based on the recognition of the historic value of the urban fabric and the understanding of the complex layering process that supports the city, it can be considered that the development of urban planning as an independent discipline in the first part of the twentieth century provided the foundation of the modern approach to urban conservation. In a way, it even provided approaches that were theoretically more comprehensive than the ones that emerge in second half of the century on urban conservation (Bandarin & Van Oers, 2012).

From the other hand, the XXs Century was witness of a break in the practice and vision of architecture and urban planning: The Modern Movement. This intellectual movement redefine the role and principles of both disciplines by developing a vison born in the needs of mass society, shifting the attention of urban planners from a harmonious urban development to a functional urban development, which saw the historic city as a negative model with unhealthy areas to be destroy and renew. Modern Movement, after 1st World War, developed its doctrine at international level in the CIAM (Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne). In this regard, at the CIAM 4th meeting, hold in a cruise to Athens, it was produce the most important manifesto promoted by the movement: the Athens Charter. The cruise was hold in 1933, but the charter was only published in 1943.

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

Due to the ideological origins of the Modern Movement, it was impossible to merge this movement ideas with the discussion about heritage and conservation that was ongoing on the same period.

While parallel to the Modern Movement, the first important international document for the heritage conservation was published in 1931. This document, was done during a Conference meeting of different architects, archeologist and conservators and it was ironically commonly referred as the Athens Charter6. Although the Conference was European, it opened a continued production of International Charters, that represented the outcome of more than a century of discussion about the conservation of ancient monuments and sites. The 1931 Athens Conference offered for the first time the opportunity to compare different nationals approaches about conservation. This document was an important precedent step for the 1964 Venice Charter and the precursor of the conservation policies that were developed internationally by UNESCO in the second half of the XXs century.

The second half of the XXs Century started with the end of the second World War, which had left behind a panorama of destruction and moral awareness about the consequences of a war of this magnitude.

Moreover, the increasing process of rural-urban migration, the economic pressure of private-car ownership, the investment pressure for residential and commercial development, constituted examples of a time of huge economic and social change. And, it showed an initial face of a phenomenon that would quickly spread on the future years and that would have a high impact in the cities and in the development of the architecture and urban disciplines.

From this point of view, the amount of enrich theories developed in the period of the post-World Wars by the progress of the urban discipline, showed that architects and planners approaches towards urban conservation have been enormously enriched by the integration of the social and territorial analysis of the historic city as a new scope of the urban discipline. Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) wrote, “the time has come to architects and planners to find new ways to manage development, respecting historical patterns, the meaning of space and social links”.

Furthermore, the members of the ex CIAM Congress, now branching new directions, joint together a team called showed their awareness in the social planning and the human habitat condition, joint together a team called Team 107. And, the interaction between the discipline and inhabitant’s traditions show a variety of innovative exercises hold outside Europe and north America, like the ones developed by the Egyptian Architect Hassan Fathi in Cairo or the British architect John Turner in Latin America, that showed the importance of self-construction, vernacular architecture and the rediscovery of the locals’ traditions as a tool to conserve the social and physical integrity of the places.

Figure 4. London after 2nd World War [Source: Flirckr photos]

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A brief history towards Urban Conservation

Figure 5. Model of Le Corbusier’s Plan for the Reconstruction of Paris [Source: thecharnelhouse.org]

Moreover, the urban discipline has provided the basis for the development of a wide range of experiments, which in each different case reflects the many principles expressed before by architects and planners. For example: M. R. G. Cozen (1907-2000) in Great Britain focused in the physical morphology of the city as result of the historical layering process, that can be read as a palimpsest. As well Kevin Lynch (1918-1984) in USA developed a theory that analyzed the integration between individuals and the environment, classifying the mental image of the inhabitants according their view in real time. This study would lead to a second reflection regarding the process of change of the environment. Furthermore, some architects reflected in the meaning of the context in architecture, like Collin Rowe (1920-1999) and Robert Venturi (1925-), who considered a modern dream the idea of managing and controlling the urban processes of a city, trying to look for alternative methods that would interpreted the fragmented city of the XXs Century, like consireing a city as a mosaic of interventions. As well, others have redefined an ‘updated’ idea of genius loci by including the ‘nonphysical’ nature of the space, like Norberg-Schulz (1926-2000) or, like Vittorio Gregotti (1927- ) who have tried to redefine the relation within the historical area and the territory that embraced it, integrating the concepts of genius loci and place to create an ‘architecture of the place’… A single paragraph would never be enough to give examples of the different approaches to the urban discpline (and as well it can be said of architecture) developed in the second half of the XXs Century (Bandarin & Van Oers, 2012).

In this regard, it is possible to affirm that no single ‘school’ claim to have prevailed in the urban discussion. This situation showed indeed the evidence of the necessity to adapt theories and practice into the values of the context, to the forms of society’s appreciation of heritage, and to the pattern of social change (Choay, 2009).

In this sense, the urban discipline has evolved to understand that ‘the very nature of the historic city, of its meaning and of its historical formation, has been revealed through the analysis of its structural aspects, its layering processes, and of the formation of collective and individual value systems through time’ (Bandarin and Van Oers, 2012) and, at the root of the ‘development of urban historic conservation one can find, therefore, the merging of two ideas: the preservation of the monuments and of the historic buildings and spaces, and the conservation of the traditional social fabric of a city or of an urban area’(Taylor & Lennon, 2012). Because of this reason, contemporary urban conservation approaches have been based on these values, which are reflected in the existing charters, documents, policies and planning frameworks adopted in all regions of the world today. By the light of the end of the XXs Century, after years of theoretical and empirical tests, urban conservation is indeed appeared as an important area of public policy awareness.

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

3.3. ‘Urban Conservation’ discussion on International Policy since 1972 World Heritage Convention to nowadays.

Figure 6. Chronology Urban Conservation since World Heritage Convention [Source: Own processing diagram]

38

A brief history towards Urban Conservation

After the World Wars, the increasing awareness about the verminousness social and economic changes, led the reaction of architects, conservators, planners and politicians to establish not only national policies to emphasize the importance of heritage conservation; the post-war period has been very important for the growth of the conservation movement at the international level and the establishment of major governmental and non-governmental organizations for heritage conservation.

As it was explained in the first chapter of this thesis, the creation of UNESCO in 1945 and the international heritage safeguarding campaigns of historic cities contexts that were developed in the 1950s and 1960s (such as Venice in 1966, Kathmandu in 1979, Havana in 1980, Sana’a in 1984) created important urban conservation initiatives and contributed substantially to the development and internationalization of the debate of the urban conservation.

In this regard, before 1972 World Heritage Convention UNESCO promote two Recommendations to support conservation of historic areas (albeit not specifically urban). First, the 1962 UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Safeguarding of the Beauty and Character of Landscapes and Site8, and second, the 1968 Recommendation concerning the Preservation of Cultural Property Endangered

by Public Private Works. These documents, respectively, took attention of the international community regarding the importance of protection of natural landscapes and urban landscapes, and pointed the necessity to develop more accurate management regulations. Moreover, they opened a path to the adoption of the 1972 Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, known as World Heritage Convention. As it was explained in previous chapters, the Convention constitutes the most important international legal tool for conservation in which, for the first-time principles that had been debated among experts became the object of international legal instrument.

However, in the field of urban conservation, the Convention did not bring conceptual innovations.

While the Convention has the merit of embracing a broad spectrum of heritage categories, ranging from archaeological sites to monuments and landscapes and to different types of natural heritage categories, it limits the definition of urban historic areas as ‘groups of buildings’, a definition still applied today to this type of heritage (Taylor & Lennon, 2012). Even its conceptual limits, the importance of urban historic areas became clear at the core of the Convention which fostered the debate regarding international policies. For example, the 1975 Declaration of Amsterdam issued in the European Congress of Architectural Heritage. This document aimed to establish a link between urban planning and urban conservation and pointed out the role of architecture in historic areas guiding the future documents like the Council of Europe’s Convention for the Protection of Architectural Heritage adopted in Granada in 1985.

While critics stressed the European approach of the debates and the Convention; the Convention had undoubtedly been a key tool for the internationalization of urban conservation practice. In this sense, the importance of the issues discussed all these debates, leads UNESCO preparation of the 1976 Recommendations Concerning the Safeguarding and Contemporary Role of Historic Areas, that was adopted in Nairobi. While this document does not deal exclusively with urban areas, it includes all different elements relevant to urban historic conservation like the necessity to consider the historic areas and its surroundings as a total and coherent whole, whose protection and conservation should be object of public policies and legislation. In this sense, Nairobi Recommendation showed the spirit of its time of public planning and optimistic perspective of public funding capacities.

Moreover, in 1987 it was published a Charter for the Conservation of Historic Towns and Urbans Areas, known as the Washington Charter. This document addresses the specific issues of urban conservation and it represents a huge innovation in the field towards the definition of urban heritage in World Heritage by linking the physical structures with its surroundings both natural and man-made and, the functions acquired over time. It collected and synthesized the contributions about urban conservation until then.

After this chapter, the Operational Guidelines were modified to specify the which kind of Historic Towns and Town Centers can be inscribed on the World Heritage List9.

This situation evidence that the use of the adjective “historical” to refer to a city, an area or neighborhood is a convention by which it is recognized in the object of study qualities that, coming from a past remote, persist at present and are recognizable and worthy of valuation and protection. However, the Chapter still not referred to the urban landscape and its character or other qualities (like morphology, etc.) which would distinguish one city from another in a different cultural and geographical context.

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

In this sense, by 1992 the discussion of the concept of heritage at international level and its management reflected only in part the advancement of intellectual scope of the discipline. In this context, the international community was expressing their necessity to move away from an excessively Eurocentric frame work that had been dominant for a century (Falser, 2010). In this regard, the beginning of the 1990s constituted an important step in the international Conservation discussion.

First, in 1992, it was necessary to modify the Operational Guidelines due to the challenging classification of new possible inscriptions after Cultural Landscape concept inclusion as it was explained in the previous chapther.

Moreover, this situation leaded to a very important discussion about how should be defined Authenticity of a World Heritage in different cultural and geographical contexts. Because of this, in 1994 was published the 1994 Nara Document on Authenticity. This document defines heritage as an expression of the diversity of cultures and links conservation practices to the values attributed to heritage by each culture10.

In this respect, the concept of authenticity, as defined by the Venice Charter, needs to be understood in relation to criteria which originate in their respective cultural spheres (Falser, 2010). In which, ‘depending on the nature of the cultural heritage, its cultural context, and its evolution through time authenticity judgements may be linked to the worth of a great variety of sources of information. Aspects of the sources may include form and design, materials and substance, use and function, traditions and techniques, location and setting, and spirit and feeling, and other internal and external factors. The use of these sources permits elaboration of the specific artistic, historic, social, and scientific dimensions of the cultural heritage being examined11.

Furthermore, after ICOMOS study regarding the representativeness in the World Heritage List12, in 1994 UNESCO launched Global Strategy for a Representative, Balanced and Credible World Heritage List. The aim of this initiative was to ensure that the List reflects a world’s cultural and natural diversity. Because of this reason, by adopting the Global Strategy, the World Heritage Committee wanted to broaden the definition of World Heritage to better reflect the full spectrum of our world’s cultural and natural treasures and to provide a comprehensive framework and operational methodology for implementing the World Heritage Convention. This new vision goes beyond the narrow definitions of heritage and strives to recognize and protect sites that are outstanding demonstrations of human coexistence with the land as well as human interactions, cultural coexistence, spirituality and creative expression13.

All these documents, constituted a symptomatic evolution of the concept of heritage which is also reflected in the awareness of the role of intangible values in the international conservation community.

This awareness was enhanced by the adoption by the General Conference of UNESCO in 2003 of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage and, the Yamato Declaration on Integrated Approaches for Safeguarding Tangible and Intangible Cultural Heritage, to promote the liking between the 1972 World Heritage Convention and the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.

In this sense, it is important to remembered that even if the changes introduced were not directly referring to urban conservation, they have had huge implementation in the urban conservation field, like for example to provide useful guidelines for the nomination process of future World Heritage properties, so that a broad range of typologies can be considered as World Heritage; going beyond the traditional monumental approach of the Convention text. In this regard, as it was written before, while the text of the Convention was never modified, the Operational Guidelines have expanded to specify several aspects related to the main document. In relation to urban conservation, the concepts devote to cities and historic urban areas are include in Annex 3. Nowadays, this part refers to specific types of assets like: a) Cultural Landscapes, b) Historic Towns and Town Centres14 and, c) and d) which represent other inscriptions like Heritage Canals and Heritage Routes.

Furthermore, during 2003 World Heritage Committee session, the Committee requested the organization of a meeting to discuss how to regulate the needs for the modernization and development of historic urban environments while preserving their cultural values15. Consequently, in 2005, it was hold a meeting was hold in Vienna titled “Declaration on the Conservation of the Historic Urban Landscape”.

The final document of that conference, known as the Vienna Memorandum, ‘aimed to address some of the limitations of the traditional approach, by defining historic urban areas not as a ‘sum’ of monuments

40

A brief history towards Urban Conservation

and urban fabric, but as comprehensive system, marked by historical, geomorphologic and social relationships with its settings and its environment, and characterized by a complex layering of meanings and expressions’ (Bandarin & Van Oers, 2011).

The Vienna Memorandum constitute the first attempt in twenty years to revise and update the modern urban conservation paradigm (Conti, 2015). From that moment, a series of expert’s meetings were hold to discuss the urban conservation issue. These meetings concluded in the 2011 UNESCO Recommendation on Historic Urban Landscape. This recommendation has set the scene for a future discussion , bringing together the integration of the urban complexity into the discussion.

In this sense, it is important to recall that the worldwide impact of the World Heritage Convention on urban conservation cannot be underestimated. Since the first year of the Convention, cultural heritage in urban context and “historic towns” have become one the largest heritage property promoted by World Heritage List16. In this context, in the XXIs Century, in which half of the population live in urban areas, and cities are becoming more and more complex every day, the situation demands a new approach on urban conservation as international level, that would understand that the different meanings of heritage in each different places are shaped by different environmental, social, economic and cultural conditions (Bandarin and Van Oers, 2014) and, that recognize and respect them as the first step in order to fulfil their potential to reconnect the “historic city’” with its urban context and to the dynamics of an urban century.

Notes 1. In 1837, in France, it was created the Commission de Monuments Historiques; while in Great Britain in 1877 it was created the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings.

2. Georges-Eugène Haussmann (1809-1891) 3. Haussmann’s renovation of Paris was a vast public works program commissioned by Napoleon III between 1853 and 1870. The urban interventions following Haussmann strategies were worldwide replicate in almost all the European capitals and other cities of the world, even in the XXs century similar ideas followed Haussman ‘renweal’ strategies.

4. John Ruskin (1819-1900) 5. Viollet-Le-Duc (1814-1879) 6. (1931) The Athens Charter for the Restoration of Historic Monuments.

7. Team 10 (CIAM meeting 1959 - Team 10 meeting 1977). Composed by: Jaap Bakema, Georges Candilis, Giancarlo De Carlo, Aldo van Eyck, Alison and Peter Smithson and Shadrach Woods. Other participants and their contributions are: José Coderch, Ralph Erskine, Pancho Guedes, Rolf Gutmann, Geir Grung, Oskar Hansen, Reima Pietilä, Charles Polonyi, Brian Richards, Jerzy Soltan, Oswald Mathias Ungers, John Voelcker, and Stefan Wewerka. The interesting of this group in social planning in urbanisim, put in value the issue of the human habiat, that later on would drive eventually into the creation of the UN-Habitat Agency in 1978.

8. The importance of the safeguarding of cultural landscapes was already recognized by the ‘‘Recommendation Concerning the Safeguarding of Beauty and Character of Landscapes and Sites’’ adopted by the 12th session of UNESCO’s General Conference on 11 December 1962. However, this instrument was not legally binding and encouraged Member States to adopt measures for the safeguarding of landscapes and sites.

9. In the Operational Guidelines, the “Groups of urban buildings” eligible for inscription on the World Heritage List fall into three main categories: “(i) towns which are no longer inhabited but which provide unchanged archaeological evidence of the past; these generally satisfy the criterion of authenticity and their state of conservation can be relatively easily controlled; (ii) historic towns which are still inhabited and which, by their very nature, have developed and will continue to develop under the influence of socio-economic and cultural change, a situation that renders the assessment of their authenticity more difficult and any conservation policy more problematical; (iii) new towns of the twentieth century which paradoxically have something in common with both the aforementioned categories: while their original urban organization is clearly recognizable and their authenticity is undeniable, their future is unclear because their development is largely uncontrollable”. UNESCO, Operational Guidelines for the implementation of the World Heritage Convention, page 74. Heritage definition on the 1994 Nara Document on Authenticity. ICOMOS, 1994.

10. 1994 Nara Document on Authenticity. Source: http://whc.unesco.org/archive/nara94.htm 11. Article 13 of the 1994 Nara Document on Authenticity.

12. A global study carried out by ICOMOS from 1987 to 1993 revealed that Europe, historic towns and religious monuments, Christianity, historical periods and ‘elitist’ architecture (in relation to vernacular) were all over-represented on the World Heritage List; whereas, all living cultures, and especially ‘traditional cultures’, were underrepresented.

13. Source: http://whc.unesco.org/en/globalstrategy/ 14. The part referred to ‘Historic Towns and Town Centres’ was written in 1987 in the context of the urban conservation discussion at the 1987 Washington Charter and, since that moment it was never modified. It was however first included in the Annex 2, but since the inclusion of the Cultural Landscape, it was include in the Annex 3.

15. UNESCO, 2005. World Heritage Committee. Decision 29 COM 5D. 16. At the 40th anniversary of the Convention, over 250 historic cities and historic urban areas are represented in the World Heritage List, making up a third of the sites inscribed’ (Bandarin & Van Oers, 2010).

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

42

'2011 UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape'

Part I_ A

_4_ ‘2011 UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape’

4.1. ‘Historic urban landscape’ approach.

Undoubtedly, modern ‘urban’ conservation principles suffer from being derived from ‘architectural’ conservation principles. In the 1964 Charter of Venice, the founding document of modern international conservation, the focus is almost exclusively on the monument and its restoration in fact, it was this limitation that prompted ICOMOS to formulate a specific complementary Charter for Urban Conservation, the 1987 Washington Charter, a document that substantially enriches the international toolkit in this field including elements such as urban patterns, public spaces, natural and manmade settings. This approach has certainly played an extremely important role in the creation of urban historic conservation as a field of public policy and city planning, but presents as we have shown weaknesses and limitations that have pushed practitioners to explore new avenues, and take into account many innovative views expressed in past decades (Taylor & Lennon, 2012) .

In this regard, in the first decade of the 21st Century it was open a discussion regarding the urban conservation principles, which aimed to address the unviability of these principles in relation with the new challenges that have arisen product of the globalization and the current economic forces.

The project Wien-Mitte (Vienna central station)1 opens a path to a discussion about World Heritage Sites and contemporary architecture. In 2005, at the Committee called for a Conference about World Heritage and Contemporary Architecture – Managing the Historic Urban Landscape that was held in Vienna. After the conference it was issued the Vienna Memorandum. ‘The Vienna Memorandum aimed at discussing some of the limitations of the traditional approach, by defining urban historic areas not as a ‘sum’ of monuments and urban fabric, but as a comprehensive system marked by historical, geomorphologic and social relationships with its setting and its environment, and characterized by a complex layering of meanings and expressions’ (Taylor & Lennon, 2012). Even the Vienna document focuses on the management of urban historical landscapes and the relationship between contemporary architecture and traditional environments, it constituted the first attempt in twenty years to revise and update the modern urban conservation paradigm. This document brought up the concept of ‘historic urban landscape’ which was established in the Article 82 of the 1976 UNESCO Recommendation of Nairobi which it was never been discussed and revised as it would be done since Vienna Memorandum to nowadays.

‘Historic Urban Landscape’ concept can be analyzed by the semantic meaning of the words that composed it. In this regard, the concept “urban landscape”, as it was explained in the previous chapter was incorporated into the language of urbanism since Cullen’s book Townscape in 1961 and, it proposed an approach based on the perception of the components that integrate the urban system, in which the idea of ​​“landscape” is rather referred to the sensitive apprehension of the urban phenomenon.

Furthermore, it is related with the term ‘historical’, which according to the Vienna Memorandum definition, it stresses the link between physical forms and social evolution, defining historic cities as a system that integrates natural and man-made elements, in an historical continuum, representing a layering of expressions throughout history (Bandarin & Van Oers, 2012).

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

Figure 7. [Source: UNESCO Report CUlture: Urban future, 2016]

44

'2011 UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape'

In this sense, the definition of the ‘Historic Urban Landscape’ concept initiated a long debate to bring in new aspects of urban conservation. Because of this debate, in the following years, a series of institutions and partnerships3 promoted the discussion by meetings and Declarations. These encounters were of high importance to reinterpret the bases of the urban conservation discipline like the definition of the ‘urban heritage values’ of a city and concepts like ‘spirit of the place’4 and ‘setting’5.

In this context, it emerged a new definition of ‘Urban Heritage’, a comprehensive conception of heritage which includes natural and cultural, material and immaterial components that overcomes the traditional notion of historic centers or historic towns to include a larger territorial approach with a deep understanding of the ‘sense of place’ given by the community and daily life of the inhabitants. In this regard, social patterns and cultural traditions are important for the urban heritage values as the urban form and the architecture are vital elements to define it character and articulation.

Moreover, during many years the discussion was involved into the decision if ‘Historic Urban Landscape’ would constitute a new World Heritage category. In this regard, it was established that it does not constitute a ‘separate heritage category’. On the contrary, the concept is inscribed within the established concept of urban historic areas, while at the same time adding a new lens to the practice of urban conservation: a broader ‘territorial’ view of heritage, accompanied by a greater consideration of the social and economic functions of an historic city, an approach to managing change that tries to cope with modern developments, and finally a re-evaluation of modern contributions to historic values. It is a tool to project the ideas of urban conservation in the twenty-first century (Bandarin, in Taylor and Lennon, 2012).

The concept of ‘Historic Urban Landscape’ reflects a change towards sustainable development in the governance of urban conservation. In this sense, after years for discussion, UNESCO launched the 2011 Recommendation of Historic Urban Landscape, that define it as an approach towards heritage management that supports heritage integration with environmental, social and cultural concerns into the planning, design and implementation of urban development. In order to facilitate the implementation of the recommendation UNESCO and its partnerships launched a series of programs and regional meetings to promote the knowledge of the approach, as well as it encourage community participation and, public and private partnerships associations.

In this sense, the ‘Historic Urban Landscape’ is an approach that pursues to reconnect urban conservation with the process of city planning and regional development; new architecture with the historic context and, the different cultural traditions with each e socio-economic trends that are evolving in the contemporary life.

4.1.1. Integrating disciplines and Actors.

Once the Recommendation was adopted, the challenge has been to implement the principles of the methodological approach of the Historic Urban Landscape, which implies a revision not only of conceptual but of the legal and management instruments and procedures, including the participation of all social actors involved.

In this sense, the ‘Historic Urban Landscape’ heritage management approach is on the need to integrate the different disciplines for the analysis and planning of the urban conservation process, in order not to separate it from the planning and development of the contemporary city. In this context, the conservation of the historic city needs to go beyond the expert opinion of the conservation specialists only. There is an urgent need to involve a broader constituency comprised of other groups than the usual suspects, such as residents, youth, entrepreneurs, urban planners and managers, artists and the media, among others, in order to forge collaborative alliances, reduce conflicts and optimize creative use of the historic city (Bandarin and Van Oers, 2014). Because of this reason, this approach requires a broader engagement of a greater variety of stakeholders: public, private, governmental and civil; who normally do not have many occasions to meet and work together. Moreover, a cross-sectoral communication would ensure the alignment with their social, economic and environmental interests. In this respect, the Historic Urban Landscape approach, depends on the involvement and empowerment of the community’s capacity to recognize and understand the qualities of the historic urban landscape.

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

4.1.2. Methodologies and Tools.

The ‘Historic Urban Landscape’ approach is about managing urban heritage and integrating contemporary needs positively with continuities in cultural heritage. Thus, a variety of interdisciplinary and different types of tools, mechanism and instruments are necessary to guide and manage change and development to be compatible with heritage identity and values. However, these tools and instruments must be adapted to the local contexts.

THE SIX STEPS OF 'HISTORIC URBAN LANDSCAPE' APPROACH

1

2

3

4

5

6

Survey and mapping natural, cultural and human resources

Work with local people participatory planning and stakeholder consultations

Assess vulnerability of socio-economic trends and impact of chimate change

Integrate 'Historic Urban Landscape' into a wider city development framework

Prioritize actions

Establish partnerships and local management frameworks

Figure 8. [Source: Own processing]

In the book ‘Reconnecting the city: historic Urban Landscape approach and the future of Urban Heritage’6, Jyoti Hosagrahar, recalls the importance of emphasizing locality, context, historical continuities and identity, which it can achieve a heritage-sensitive approach to manage heritage in a sustainable way. In this sense, the tools are intended to be the nexus to offer opportunities for a plural, gentler, and more contextually responsive mode of development (Hosagrahar J., in Bandarin and Van Oers, 2014).

In this regard, tools can be technical, legal, management or financial, to either mapping, measuring and visualizing the urban landscape, or to help in the planning, regulating or given the economic assets that would guarantee the development of the plan.

Knowledge & Planning actors

Planning

Community engagement tools

Publicity

GIS

THE 'HISTORIC URBAN LANDSCAPE' TOOLKIT Big Data

Morphology analysis

Dialogue and consultation

Impact/ Vulnerability assessment

Community empowerment

Cultural mapping

Regulatory systems

Laws and regulations

Traditional custom

Policies and Plans

Financial tools

Economics

Grants

Public-Private cooperation

Figure 9. [Source: Own processing over graphic at The HUL Guidebook, 2016, page 15]

46

Policy assessment

'2011 UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape'

The technical tools should help to protect the material attributes of the urban heritage, in this sense an inventory and database of all the elements should involve a deep analysis of the urban landscape: tangible and intangible aspects that would permit the visual and formal analysis to recognize the cultural significance and diversity of it.

Moreover, it is important to recall the scale of analysis, intended as the broader different scales that could be taken according to the stakeholder’s possibilities. In this sense, it is not enough to analyze only the city; a regional and territorial analysis would show urban relations that are not possible to notice in a near context. However, the near context need to be documented as well. In this sense, any documentation prepared by all the possible stakeholder would be vital.

The regulatory systems, should include all the legal tools to manage tangible and intangible aspects of the urban heritage. In this case, all the legal levels should be considered, from the nation constitution to the local policies. In this respect, the traditional and old systems or policies should be studied and reinforced, based on the relying on the cross-cutting extent of a policy issue, with a ‘special agency’ to manage and support the multi-levels efforts. Furthermore, all levels collaboration is important. City-tocity cooperation is vital to guarantee a network of good practices and framework. As well as NGOs and educational institutions at service of the regulatory systems could help to the knowledge diffusion of the policy issues.

From another hand, in the bases of the ‘Historic Urban Landscape’ approach are the community management and the relation of a broader network of stakeholders that would empowered a diverse cross-section inputs to identify, develop visions, set goals and agree actions to safeguard their heritage and promote sustainable development. As well, the financial tools should aim to improve urban areas while safeguarding their heritage values, by building capacity and innovative support. In this sense, public and private investment networks should be promoted to establish a variety of models and partnerships.

Finally, even the internationality of the approach promoted by UNESCO and its network of partnerships, it must be recall that ‘Historic Urban Landscape’ approach is a global approach, a tactic, a method; however, its implementation and results are product of the local context synergy.

Notes 1. The project Wien-Mitte (Vienna central station) was an architectural development project aimed to build a complex of modern buildings which visually affected the World Heritage Sites of Vienna. This situation constituted the last drop in the discussion about contemporary architecture in World Heritage Sites.

2. ‘(…) The historic urban landscape is embedded with current and past social expressions and developments that are placebased. It is composed of character-defining elements that include land uses and patterns, spatial organization, visual relationships, topography and soils, vegetation, and all elements of the technical infrastructure, including small scale objects and details of construction (curbs, paving, drain gutters, lights, etc.)’ Fragment of 1976 Nairobi Recommendation.

3. ‘The following organizations have been involved in the Historic Urban Landscape initiative: ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites, IUCN (International Union an Conservation of Nature), ICCROM (International Centre for the Study of Preservation Restoration of Cultural Property), UIA (International Union of Architects), IFLA (International Federation of Landscape Architects), IFHP (International Federation for Housing and Planning), OWHC (Organization of World Heritage Cities), the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, IAIA (International Association of Impact Assessment), UN-Habitat, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), ISOCARP (International Society of City and Regional Planners), DOCOMOMO (International Committee for Documentation and Conservation the sites and Neighborhoods of the Modern Movement), the Getty Conservation Institute’. Source: http://whc.unesco.org/en/activities/638/ 4. ‘The setting of a heritage structure, site or area is defined as the immediate and extended environment that is part of or contributes significance and distinctive character. Beyond the physical and visual aspects, the setting includes interaction with the natural environment; past present social or spiritual practices, customs traditional knowledge, use or activities and other forms of intangible cultural heritage aspects that created and form the space as well as the current and dynamic cultural, social and economic context (…)” Source: The ‘XI’an Declaration on the Conservation of the Setting of Heritage Structures, Sites and Areas’, was adopted by the 15th General Assembly of ICOMOS in 2005.

5. ‘The 2008 ‘Quebec Declaration on the Preservation of the Spirit of Place attempts to define an approach to the interpretation of the values and meaning of a place based on the interaction and mutual construction between the tangible and the intangible elements (…)’. Source: The Quebec Declaration on the Spirit of Place was adopted by the 16th General Assembly of ICOMOS. 6. Chapter 10 ‘Knowledge and Planning tools’.

47

Part I_ B

Analyzing World Heritage Convention concepts and UNESCO recommendations in Latin America

Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

50

Mapping Cultural World Heritage Sites in Latin America and the Caribbean Region

Part I_ B

_1_ Mapping Cultural World Heritage Sites in Latin America and the Caribbean Region

Figure 10. Latin American World Heritage Sites. [Source: own processing image]

For the World Heritage framework, the Latin America and the Caribbean Region is composed by 33 countries1 that have ratified the World Heritage Convention, with 140 properties inscribed on the List.

By 2016, the Region representativeness is composed by a total of 98 Cultural properties, 37 Natural properties and 5 Mixed properties.

Regarding Cultural Heritage, the Sites inscribed can be divided in the following classification: Historic centers and towns, Archeological foundations, Colonial Properties, 20th Century Architecture, Industrial Landscapes, Cultural Landscapes and Transboundary Sites2.

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

1.1.

Cultural World Heritage Sites in “urban context”.

Until 2017, 59 of 97 Cultural World Heritage Sites of the Latin America and the Caribbean region are properties in “urban context”. The study of the Cultural Heritage in “urban context”3, as it is represented in Figure 8, shows that the properties in “urban context” represents the highest number of the regional properties list.

Figure 11. Latin American World Heritage Sites. [Source: own processing]

From the total of 97 Sites, a number 35 belongs to Historic Centers and Historic Towns, which represent the most represented Cultural Heritage category in the Region.

The second most represented type of Cultural Heritage are the Archeological foundations with a total of 27 properties. In this case, only 2 properties are in urban context.

From another hand, another important typology on the List is the Colonial time properties (“monuments” and “buildings”). In this case, 11 of 16 properties inscribed are situated in urban context.

Moreover, all the 6 properties classified as 20th Century Architecture are in urban context. While only 2 of 4 Industrial Landscapes are in an urban context (which one of them as well it can be classified as an Historic Town). Furthermore, only 1 property among the Cultural Landscapes of Latin American and the Caribbean is an urban context.

Besides the incorporation of new heritage categories during the last decade (Cultural Landscapes, Industrial Landscapes, 20th Century Architecture), Historic centers and Historic Towns continue to be considered as an important category for the cultural identity of region, followed by the Archeological Sites and Colonial Properties.

In this regard, it is possible to express that from a historical perspective, Latin American and the Caribbean Cultural properties can be classified into three large groups: the period prior to the arrival of Europeans, the period of Spanish and Portuguese presence and administration, and another one that begins with the independence of the countries until the present time.

In this sense, regarding the Region representativeness in the World Heritage List, the period most represented is colonial, followed by the archaeological sites represented by the pre-Columbian era.

However, in a more over-arching perspective, the World Heritage List does not reflect the characteristics developed by the Latin-American countries since achieving their independence in the 19th century. This situation can be interpreted in general terms due to the conceptual definition and heritage valuation of the history of the region which it is reflected by the European vision of the Charters on International Heritage Conservation and the 1972 World Heritage Convention itself.

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Mapping Cultural World Heritage Sites in Latin America and the Caribbean Region

1.2 An analysis of the Historic Centers and Historic Towns.

Focusing on the analysis of the Historic centers and Historic Towns done by Conti 2009, the Figure 9 (own processing) and Figure 10 illustrate the number of Historic centers and Historic Towns in the region inscribed on the World Heritage List from 1978 to 2008.

Figure 12. Latin American Historic cities & Historic towns in the World Heritage List. [Source: own processing]

Figure 13. Latin American Historic cities in the World Heritage List. [Source: Conti, 2009]

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

Figure 14. Latin American World Heritage Sites. [Source: UNESCO Website]

Considering the Historic Center and Historic Towns inscriptions and the chronologic of the properties, the development of the inscriptions can be resumed in the following analysis made by Conti 2009, which for the purpose of this thesis it is usefull to illustate the Sites in relation with the evolution of the urban conservation discussion: “ a) During the period 1978-1983, 6 properties were inscribed on the World Heritage List, all of them of high representativeness in the history and urban-architectural characteristics of the region (Quito, Antigua Guatemala, Ouro Preto, Olinda, Havana and Cuzco). According to the requirements of the period, there was no demand to establish precise limits of the nominated and buffer zones or to identify potential risks against the values or authenticity of the assets. b) During the period 1984-1987, 8 properties were registered, with a significant increase in 1987, when Mexico presented three significant cases simultaneously (historic center of Mexico, Oaxaca and Puebla), while, in the same year, Brasilia and Potosi. Although at this stage the requirement for precise delimitation of the areas nominated for registration already existed, it is not verified in all cases, nor the delimitation of a buffer zone. c) During the period 1988-1996, 10 cases were registered. The twenty-four cases registered up to that time (more than half of the total to the present time) did not necessarily present a precise definition of nominated zones and of damping, although in this period it was necessary to identify potential risk factors as well as instruments for protection and responsible administrative structures. d) During the last decade, 16 new urban properties have been incorporated into the World Heritage List, in which, as requested in the Operational Guidelines, it was already necessary to include in the nomination file precise definition of nominated areas and cushioning, normative instruments and administrative structures of protection and management, risk factors and methods and follow-up schemes” (Conti, 2009, 70-71) 4.

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Mapping Cultural World Heritage Sites in Latin America and the Caribbean Region

1.2.1. South American analysis.

Even the common historical process of Region, the geographical differences between the wide territory of the region have constituted different cultural realities in each part inside this huge region. Because of these differences, a multilayered urban heritage has shaped each part inside the region.

In this sense, UNESCO divided the region in 3 groups according its geographical location and the geopolitical interrelation between its members. These groups are: Central America (includes Mexico), the Caribbean and South America.

Coming up to South America region, the urban heritage recognized different realities in relation with the history and the socio-economic structure of each Nation that composed each “sub-region”. In this regard, the tropical countries in the northern part of South America constituted a sub-group, the Andean countries constituted another one and, as well Brazil and Argentina another group.

However, as it was explained in the previously item, the common historical process suffered by all the region constituted a common background of analysis. In this regard, as it was written before, it is possible to express that from a historical perspective, that South American urban heritage can be classified into three large groups: the Pre-Columbian times, the Colonial times and the Independence times until today.

In this regard, there is almost no property in classification Historic Centers and Historic Towns that directly recognize as World Heritage values the efforts of the Colonies to become Independent Nations when, under the influence of new immigration, internal development, world commerce integration, the independent Nations had received and assimilated new cultural inputs to build their own heritages.

In this regard, 1994 Nara Charter on Authenticity, the ICOMOS study about the World Heritage List and its posterior UNESCO Global Strategy represented a change into the vision of the future inscriptions.

Because of these situations, in the South America region have been an important area of discussion of the evolution of the urban conservation discussion. The inclusion of Cultural Landscape as classification and the development of the Historic Urban Landscape discussion with the posterior ‘2011 UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape’ have represented for the region two important steps in the ongoing discussion regarding an over-arching urban heritage recognition in South America (Conti, 2013).

Figures 15. CIty of Quito sreet view. [Source: UNESCO Website]

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

first sites inscribed 1972 World Heritage Convention

1978

1987

2003

2012-2014

BRASILIA

VALPARAISO

RIO DE JANEIRO

The inscription of a city or part of it on the World Heritage List reflects the National and the International Urban Conservation policies. In order to explain how the World Heritage inscriptions reflects the ‘spirit of its time’ on international urban conservation policies, a series of three concrete World Heritage cases in South American cities will be presented. From their World Heritage List inscription date, chronologically, these case studies are: Brasilia, Valparaiso and Rio de Janeiro. However, as an inscription of a ‘city or a part of it’ in the World Heritage List implies an undoubted impact on the economic, social and cultural aspects of the place, these case studies, would be presented not in the chronological order of its inscription. In this regard, they would be analyzed according their impact on the evolution of the ‘urban heritage’ importance as part of the ongoing urban conservation discussion.

Notes 1. Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia (Plurinational State of), Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of).

2. This classification does not represent the Cultural Heritage classification for the UNESCO World Heritage Lis, it just indicates the classification of the properties in Latin America and the Caribbean.

3. Cultural World Heritage Sites at UNESCO Latin American and the Caribbean region (Clasiffied and organized by State Party alphabetical order).

Historic centers and Historic Towns: 35 - Historic Bridgetown and its Garrison, Barbados URBAN CONTEXT - Historic Square of Sucre, Bolivia HISTORIC CENTRE - Historic Town of Ouro Preto, Brazil HISTORIC TOWN - Historic Centre of the Town of Olinda, Brazil HISTORIC CENTRE - Historic Centre of Salvador de Bahia, Brazil HISTORIC CENTRE - Historic Centre of Sao Luis, Brazil HISTORIC CENTRE - Historic Centre of the Town of Diamantina, Brazil HISTORIC CENTRE - Historic Centre of the Town of Goiás, Brazil HISTORIC CENTRE - Sao Francisco Square in the Town of Sao Christovao, Brazil URBAN CONTEXT - Historic Quarter of the Seaport City of Valparaíso, Chile HISTORIC CENTRE - Historic Centre of Santa Cruz de Mompox, Colombia HISTORIC CENTRE - Old Havana and its Fortification System, Cuba HISTORIC CENTRE - Trinidad and the Valley de los Ingenios, Cuba HISTORIC TOWN - Urban Historic Centre of Cienfuegos, Cuba HISTORIC CENTRE - Historic Centre of Camaguey, Cuba HISTORIC CENTRE - Colonial City of Santo Domingo, Dominical Republic HISTORIC TOWN - City of Quito, Ecuador HISTORIC TOWN - Historic Centre of Santa Ana de los Rios de Cuenca, Ecuador HISTORIC CENTRE - Antigua Guatemala, Guatemala HISTORIC TOWN - Historic Centre of Mexico City and Xochimilco, Mexico HISTORIC CENTRE - Historic Centre of Oaxaca and Archaeological Site of Monte Albán, Mexico HISTORIC CENTRE - Historic Centre of Puebla, Mexico HISTORIC CENTRE - Historic Town of Guanajuato and Adjacent Mines, Mexico HISTORIC CENTRE - Historic Centre of Morelia, Mexico HISTORIC CENTRE - Historic Monuments Zone of Querétaro, Mexico URBAN CONTEXT - Historic Monuments Zone of Tlacotalpan, Mexico URBAN CONTEXT - Historic Fortified Town of Campeche, Mexico HISTORIC TOWN - Protective town of San Miguel and the Sanctuary of Jesus Nazareno de Atotonilco, Mexico HISTORIC CENTRE - City of Cuzco, Peru HISTORIC CENTRE - Historic Centre of Lima, Peru HISTORIC CENTRE - Historical Centre of the City of Arequipa, Peru HISTORIC CENTRE - Historic Inner City of Paramaribo, Suriname HISTORIC TOWN - Historic Quarter of the City of Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay HISTORIC CENTRE - Coro and its Port, Venezuela HISTORIC TOWN Colonial time properties: 16 (11 in urban context)

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Mapping Cultural World Heritage Sites in Latin America and the Caribbean Region

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Jesuit Block and Estancias of Córdoba, Argentina URBAN CONTEXT Jesuit Missions of the Chiquitos, Bolivia Sanctuary of Born Jesus do Congonhas, Brazil URBAN CONTEXT Churches of Chiloé, Chile URBAN CONTEXT Port, Fortresses and Group of Monuments, Cartagena, Colombia URBAN CONTEXT San Pedro de la Roca Castle, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba URBAN CONTEXT National Historic Park - Citadel, San Souci, Ramiers, Haiti URBAN CONTEXT Earliest 16th-Century Monastaries on the Slopes of Popocatepetl, Mexico URBAN CONTEXT Franciscan Missions in the Sierra Gorda of Querétaro, Mexico URBAN CONTEXT Aqueduct of Padre Tembleque Hydraulic System , Mexico Ruins of León Viejo, Nicaragua León Cathedral, Nicaragua URBAN CONTEXT Fortifications on the Caribbean Side of Panama: Portobelo-San Lorenzo, Panama URBAN CONTEXT Archaeological Site of Panamá Viejo and Historic District of Panamá,Panama URBAN CONTEXT Jesuit Missions of La Santísima Trinidad de Paraná and Jesús de Tavarangue, Paraguay URBAN CONTEXT Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park, Saint Kitts and Nevis 20th Century architecture: 6 (6 in urban context) - Brasilia, Brazil URBAN CONTEXT - Cuidad Universitaria de Caracas, Venezuela URBAN CONTEXT - Pampulha Modern Ensemble, Brazil URBAN CONTEXT - Luis Barragán House and Studio, Mexico URBAN CONTEXT - Central University City Campus of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico URBAN CONTEXT - Hospicio Cabañas, Guadalajara, Mexico URBAN CONTEXT Industrial Landscapes: 4 (2 in urban context) - City of Potosí, Bolivia HISTORIC CITY - Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works, Chile - Sewell Mining Town, Chile URBAN CONTEXT - Fray Bentos Industrial Landscape, Uruguay Cultural Landscapes: 5 (1 in urban context) - Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia, Colombia - Viñales Valley, Cuba - Archaeological Landscape of the First Coffee Plantations in the South-East of Cuba, Cuba - Agave Landscape and Ancient Industrial Facilities of Tequila, Mexico - Rio de Janeiro: Carioca Landscapes between the Mountain and the Sea, Brazil URBAN CONTEXT Archeological foundations: 27 (2 in urban context) - Antigua Naval Dockyard and Related Archaeological Sites, Antigua and Barbuda - Tiwanaku: Spiritual and Political Centre of the Tiwanaku Culture, Bolivia - Cueva de las Manos, Rio Pinturas, Argentina - Fuerte de Samaipata, Bolivia - Serra da Capivara National Park, Brazil - Rapa Nui National Park, Chile - National Archaeological Park of Tierradentro, Colombia - San Agustín Archaeological Park, Colombia - Precolumbian Chiefdom Settlements with Stone Spheres and Diquis, Costa Rica - Joya de Cerén Archaeological Site, El Salvador - Archaeological Park and Ruins of Quirigua, Guatemala - Maya Site of Copan, Honduras - Pre-Hispanic City and National Park of Palenque, Mexico - Pre-Hispanic City of Teotihuacan, Mexico - Pre-Hispanic City of Chichen-Itza, Mexico - El Tajin, Pre-Hispanic City, Mexico - Rock Paintings of the Sierra de San Francisco, Mexico - Pre-Hispanic Town of Uxmal, Mexico - Archaeological Zone of Paquimé, Casas Grandes, Mexico - Historic Monuments Zone of Tlacotalpan, Mexico URBAN CONTEXT - Archaeological Monuments Zone of Xochicalco, Mexico - Prehistoric Caves of Yagui and Mitla in the Central Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico - Chavin (Archaeological Site), Peru - Chan Chan Archaeological Zone, Peru URBAN CONTEXT - Lines and Geoglyphs of Nasca and Palpa, Peru - Sacred City of Caral-Supe, Peru Transboundary sites: 10 (2 in urban context) Cultural: 5 (2 in urban context) - Jesuit Missions of the Guaranis: San Ignacio Mini, Santa Ana, Nuestra Señora de Loreto and Santa Maria Mayor (Argentina), Ruins of Sao Miguel das Missoes (Brazil), Argentina, Brazil - Qhapaq Ñan, Andean Road System, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru - Quebrada de Humahuaca, Argentina URBAN CONTEXT - The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier, an Outstanding Contribution to the Modern Movement, Argentina, Belgium, France, Germany, India, Japan, Switzerland URBAN CONTEXT - Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, Mexico 4. Conti, A. L. (2009). Ciudades históricas patrimonio mundial en américa latina y el caribe. (Fragment, p.70-71) Translation by this thesis author.

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

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About Latin America and the Caribbean: Regional Charters & UNESCO Report 2016

Part I_ B

_2_ About Latin American and the Caribbean

2.1. Regional Charters for heritage conservation.

As well as the World Heritage Convention, Latin American Nations have developed (between the 1960's to the 2000s) different Regional Charters about heritage protection such as: “ The Charter of Quito (1967): • calls for inter-American cooperation and, affirms a double heritage as a value for the economic development and an instrument of progress; even it contains legal and technical measures, it mainly considers monuments according to its potential use for tourism.

Convention of San Salvador (1976): • calls for protection against no export and import, illicit use of cultural property; • defines the cultural property they deserve protection and classifies them into three chronological categories: pre-Columbian, colonial and after independence.

• establishes legislative and administrative procedures to identify, record, protect, preserve and monitor the cultural heritage of each country with their legal measures.

Colloquium of Quito (1977): • defines the ‘historic center’ concept in Latin America; addresses the problems of historic centers of the region; • proposes the role of the inhabitants in the tasks of heritage preservation; • encourages public awareness of the “not only of cultural value but of the social and alive of the historical centers “.

Letter from Veracruz (1992): • aims to convert the center historical in a socially useful and profitable instrument; • facilitates a management model with a seat in an office of management of the historical center, occupied prepare the planning of the project, within the framework of the general planning of the city and territory; and without ceasing to inform the community, promoting planning.

Declaration of San Antonio (1994): • analyzes, develops and applies to the generic principles expressed in the Nara letter, basically authenticity in various aspects: the identity, history, materials, the economical and, the social value; • when analyzing authenticity with social value cultural heritage can be a deep spiritual message that is substantiated in a common life linked to an ancestral past and expressed through customs and traditions.” 1 Among, other recent documents are: Cultural Charter of Iberoamerica 2 (2006); • XVI Iberoamerica meeting of States regarding cultural issues.

• La Habana meeting (2007); about science and technology for cultural heritage management.

Declaration of Lima (2010); • about cultural heritage risk management.

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

Taking to account the relation between the urban conservation discipline in Latin America and the previous Charters, Resolutions or Declarations, it is important to recall that as well as the International Documents regarding urban conservation, each of these documents must be analyzed in their context and the ‘spirit of their time’.

In this regard, the most notorious reflection of these documents is that even the cultural diversity of heritage in the different Latin America historical periods (pre-Columbian, colonial and contemporary), most of the previous documents refers about the pre-Columbian or colonial heritage and its potential for tourism. In this sense, it must be pointed out that many of the Countries that had promoted these documents have tourism as their main economic activity.

Moreover, it is important to consider that the Latin American heritage during long time was known, but not deeply studied (Baez, 2000). In this regard, since the last two decades of the 20th Century and the beginning of the 21st Century, the protection and preservation of cultural heritage have begun to be study at national level in different countries (like the IPHAN -Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional- in Brazil, the INAH -Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia- in Mexico, etc.). Because of this, the share of the common experiences in the region and the inclusion of Sites in the World Heritage List, have reinforced the Nations commitment with their heritage. As well, since the beginning of the 21st Century, this situation was encouraged by the citizen conscience and a growing interest in national history and the heritage field.

Besides, urban conservation is still subject to study, especially in regard of the interconnection between the different policy levels, heritage managers, the private sector and the local communities. In this regard, these documents reflected the common problems of many of the countries of the region in articulating and coordinating international or regional policy with national policies that would guide the heritage actions.

2.2. Regional analysis on the 2016 UNESCO report ‘Culture: Urban Future’.

In September 2015 United Nations lunched the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The UNAgenda stablish 17 objectives and, since that moment UNESCO has started a study of their relationship with Heritage and Creativity as tools to achieve them. In this sense, in the context of the meeting HABITAT III in Quito3, UNESCO launched the report ‘Culture: Urban Future’ product of the analysis of each UNESCO Region regarding urban conservation and urban development discussion.

Regarding Latin America and the Caribbean, this report pointed out the main issues and challenges of the region: - “Although the built environment of the region’s cities was strongly shaped by the colonial era from the sixteenth century onwards, it reflects a variety of cultural influences, including an important preColumbian urban legacy.

- While the rise in megacities and urban sprawl are major features of urbanization in the region, cities are also marked by strong spatial fragmentation, which has generated inequalities and prompted urban violence.

- Diverse climatic and geographic settings have produced various urban landscapes. The relationship between cities and the environment, as well as their exposure to natural risks, are important regional features.

- While urban regeneration flourished in the region in the 1990s, it has expanded in the last decades, with the renovation of public spaces becoming a key priority in local policies.

- Despite growing political engagement with urban conservation, its impact on the wider urban development processes is insufficiently recognized, which requires the development of more comprehensive urban management approaches.

- While urban conservation and regeneration have historically been government-led, they now involve a growing variety of civil society and private partners, resulting in innovative partnerships.

- Addressing the issue of housing in historic areas remains fundamental, especially as many areas have faced gentrification processes or a loss of residential functions”4.

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About Latin America and the Caribbean: Regional Charters & UNESCO Report 2016

Figure 16. UNESCO 2016 report. Conceptual scheme. [Source: UNESCO, 2016]

Moreover, after each regional research, this UNESCO Global Report gives recommendations that following the aim of sustainable urban development are divided in three themes: People, Environment and Policies.

In this respect, this thesis focusses its attention in the following premises: - ‘Improve urban governance’ (urban heritage policies); - ‘Improve the role of the communities’ through community participation and, - ‘Enhance quality of urban spaces through culture’ (urban heritage strategies for sustainable urban development).

Notes 1. Fragment of the policy briefing regarding heritage conservation policies in Latin America until 1999 done for the project “Patrimonio Urbano: de la Percepción Sensible a la Protección Legal” made by the Nacional University of La Plata as part of UniTwin UNESCO Chair Program.

2. The meeting of State Chiefs was hold in Uruguay in 2006 had as main aim the advance into the construction of a shared Cultural program as a Region, in order to establish a more accurate partnership network of colaborations between the States. Source: http:// culturasiberoamericanas.org/ 3. “In Resolution 66/207 and in line with the bi-decennial cycle (1976, 1996 and 2016), the United Nations General Assembly decided to convene the Habitat III Conference to reinvigorate the global commitment to sustainable urbanization and to focus on the implementation of a New Urban Agenda, building on the Habitat Agenda of Istanbul in 1996”. Source: http://habitat3.org/ 4. Fragments of the briefing conclusions about the Global Survey on the role of culture for sustainable urban development, for the Latin America and the Caribbean Region. This study was coordinated by the Universidad Catolica de Chile and the network UniTwin UNESCO Chairs in the Region.

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Case Studies

Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

a. The Urban Ensemble of Brasilia as Cultural Heritage in the World Heritage List.

Date of Inscription: 1987 Criteria: (i)(iv) Property : 11,268.92 ha Country: Brazil

Figure 17. Protected area.

[Source: UNESCO Website]

Brasilia was created as the Brazilian capital in the central western part of the country from 1956 to 1960 as part of President Juscelino Kubitschek’s national modernization project. The city’s planning made

by Lucio Costa’s urban design called the ‘Plano Piloto’ and Oscar Niemeyer’s architectural creations brought together ideas of grand administrative centers and public spaces with new ideas of urban living promoted by Modernist Movement.

From the time of its conception, prior to the new capital’s inauguration, the Organic Law of the Federal District of Brazil stablished that any proposed changes to the Plano Piloto must be submitted to the Federal Senate for review. The question took on relevance beginning in the early 1980s with the city’s rapid growth. From 1981, a working group studied Brasilia’s inclusion on UNESCO’s World Heritage List, providing the protection measures, which accompanied the city’s candidacy. In 1987, the Plano Piloto of Lucio Costa for the city of Brasilia was inscribed on the World Heritage List and it was stablished the first specific regulation for its preservation.

The Urban Ensemble of Brasilia as UNESCO World Heritage Site was chosen as a case study for this thesis because it gives the opportunity to verify a stage at the World Heritage List in the late 1980s, explained by the correlation within the Outstanding Universal Value highlighted in the Nomination file and its classification under Cultural Heritage as Group of Buildings.

The site’s inscription is linked with an Outstanding Universal Value which express the necessity to preserve the authenticity1 of the monumental scale achieved by the conjunction of the architectural elements and the urban layout of the Plano Piloto. The selection criteria used for its inscription, (i) and (iv)2, embraced this idea and connected the Property attributes as an Urban Ensemble between the ‘Group of Buildings’ and the urban design which represents Modern Movement Urbanism that was materialized in Brasilia.

The Nomination file focused its attention into the text “Brasilia Revisitada” written by Lucio Costa by the time of the Property inscription. This text is considered as the guiding benchmarks of the Pilot Project of Plano Piloto’s original design. It guided how the attributes are best understood based on four scales: The monumental, the residential, the social and the bucolic scale3; and how they should be preserved. This issue becomes part of the daily life of the city even though the criticisms about the adopted regulation.

In this regard, some experts experience on the daily management of the heritage-listed area expressed that it would be impossible to maintain the urbanistic cohesion of its conception and its historical values without this legal and administrative instrument of protection. While, other experts precise that Brasilia requires new approaches, instruments and management practices, based on a reading of the listed ensemble beyond its condition of Heritage, incorporating the urban dimension of Brasilia, since it is not only about preserving a heritage artifact.

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In 1993 a ICOMOS reactive monitoring mission highlighted not only problems in the management of the property4, but also mismatches in the relation between the protected area and the satellites cities that surrounded. This condition could be analyzed as “the exact equivalent of the medieval centre of European Cities: a historic center that is maintained primarily for symbolic and sentimental reasons” (Willams, 2007, cited in Balducci, 2010). This situation, ‘did not have a clearly negative impact on the values ​​that justified the registration, however it could constitute threats in case of failure to take the necessary corrective measures’ (Conti, 2010). In this sense for example, among the potential threats to the Outstanding Universal Values ​​of Brasilia, the Site has no adequate protection of the natural landscape surrounding the city, because the buffer zone was never defined at the time of the inscription of the Site.

To conclude, the Urban Ensemble of Brasilia constitute a peculiar example of the spirit of the time because of many reasons: being one of the very first ‘property in urban context’ inscribed as ‘group of buildings’; its posterior classification condition of ‘cities of the 20th Century’ or, because of its lacking buffer zone, a tool that has demonstrated to be essential in the management of the World Heritage properties.

Moreover, it can be said that even this essay was never expected to refer about the controversy on the different approaches about the conservation of the site; both issues allowed to embody a reflection about how the challenges faced by Brasilia on the field of urban conservation are different from other World Heritage Sites in urban context. In this case, it is not only because the concepts and practices used are different from other historical centers, no less because these other sites have been already stratified through time for much longer that the decades that have passed since the city construction. It is because the different management and planning approaches are evidently subsumed in the complementation and detailing of the preservation regulations for the development of the Plano Piloto, although its urban dynamics are very different from 30 years ago when it was listed as Cultural Heritage.

Notes 1. “The authenticity of Brasilia is guaranteed through maintenance of its architecture, urban design, and landscapes, all of which represent a new approach to urban living, reaffirmed by Lucio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer on the basis of the Modernist Movement’s principles for 20th century architecture and urbanism”. UNESCO, Wolrd Heritage List, Brasilia, web http://whc.unesco.org/en/ list/445 .

2. “(i) represent a masterpiece of human creative genius and cultural significance; (…) (iv) be outstanding example of a type of building, architectural, or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates a significant stage in human history; (…)”. http:// whc.unesco.org/en/criteria/ .

3. (…)“a monumental scale, which confers on Brasilia its status as a capital city in which the nation’s administrative functions are performed; a residential scale, which embodies a new approach to living, centered on the Thoroughfare Axis (Eixo Rodoviário) along which the Neighborhood Units are distributed and divided into a North and South Wing (Asa Norte and Asa Sul); a social scale, situated at the intersection of the two axes – Monumental and Thoroughfare – where the bank, hotel, business, and service sectors converge to form the city’s central section; and a bucolic scale, which permeates the other three and is composed of large open and green spaces that provide the city with its unique city-park aspect”. Source: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/445 .

4. “(…) the uncontrolled growth of urban organism, with consequent pressure on the Plano Piloto, the gradual occupation of the banks of the lake, altering the original conception, increased vehicular traffic the consequent demand for spaces for parking, which leads to the invasion by the automobile of public spaces, invasion of formal and informal commercial uses in green spaces”.

Figure 18. Brasilia's monumental axis. [Source: gettyconservationinstitute.com]

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

b. "Rio de Janeiro: Carioca Landscapes between the Mountain and the Sea" as Cultural Landscape

Date of Inscription: 2012 Criteria: (v)(vi) Property: 7,248.78 ha Buffer zone: 8,621.38 ha Country: Brazil

Figure 19. Protected area and buffer zone. [Source: UNESCO Website]

The city of Rio de Janeiro was stablished in 1565 as a colonial settlement by the Portuguese in the Guanabara bay to prevent French occupation in the area. In the begging of the XVIII Century, the city was an important port due to Minas Gerais gold exportation and by the end of the Century it was stablished as the capital of the colonial Brazil. Furthermore, after Brazil independence from Portugal, the city was the Capital of the country upon the construction of Brasilia. Rio de Janeiro is today the second most populated Brazilian city with a population of 6.2 million1 in its central area, and an undeniable iconic city of the carioca culture and a staggeringly city to the world.

Due to its landscape and its topographical conditions, Rio de Janeiro has been shaped trough the time by sectors. The saturation of the historic city had led to the search of a place to raise cultural functions and recreational areas that can no longer be developed in the colonial city (Baratelli, 1990). However, the relationship between topography and the transformation of the city itself is explained by how the city extension is perceived in the territory between the hills and the edge of the coast, building the city as a part of this landscape. Examples of this situation could be find in the different stages of the city history, like Tijuca National Park with its restored Atlantic forest, the Botanical Gardens established in 1808, Corcovado mountain with its statue of Christ, and the chain of green hills as Sugar Loaf, Pico, Leme and Glória, around Guanabara Bay, as well as the extensive designed landscapes on reclaimed land along Copacabana Bay which, together with Flamengo and other parks, have contributed to the outdoor living culture of the city.

The landscape nature has constrained and inspired the development of the city, for this reason, since the late 1990s, Rio de Janeiro was presented to enter the World Heritage List as a Natural Heritage2.

However, in 2003, the Committee rejected the nomination and encouraged the State Party to renominate the property as a cultural landscape3. Due to the scale of the nomination and the discussion emerged it was not until 2012 that “Rio de Janeiro: Carioca Landscapes between the Mountain and the Sea” was inscribed as World Heritage. In 2014, its inscription was officialized when the State Party presented the Master Plan to manage such an enterprise.

The city of Rio de Janeiro was chosen as a case study for this research because it gives the opportunity to analyze a World Heritage List inscription under Cultural Landscape classification and its correlation

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with the Outstanding Universal Value emphasized by the relation of the city and the nature that embraced it. This condition was reflected by the selection criteria number (v) and (vi)4 which highlight the development of the city of Rio de Janeiro has been shaped by a creative fusion between nature and culture; and how this landscape of Rio de Janeiro has provided inspiration for many forms of art, literature, poetry, and music5.

By reading the Nomination file, it can be understood the importance its natural features (mountains, hills, lagoons, and the sea) and, the city’s parks for the World Heritage property in regard of a candidacy that was prepared with a careful explanation of the property components and their urban relation.

On this subject, the definition of the buffer zone was crucial. The urban landscape between the sea and the mountain constituted a buffer zone densely populated area between the sea and the mountain, in which the inscription components are distributed. The buffer zone surrounds the main highpoints in the site and other areas that contribute towards its sustainability, protection and the promotion of the universal values of its elements6. For example, the city’s densest buildings sit on the narrow strips of alluvial land between the mountains and the sea that constituted irregular clusters of tall white blocks which contrast vividly with the green vegetation of the mountains and the sea. Even they are not included in the property, a significant number are included in the buffer zone.

To conclude, it can be said that a multi-disciplinary approach merging natural disciplines with a cultural nomination has proven that linking conservation with nature and cultural management in a city requires a deep understanding of the notions that would make an urban area urban beyond architecture - the same as taking a landscape beyond the trees, rocks and waterways-, to understand its dynamics as a “landscape”7. In this sense, “Rio de Janeiro: Carioca Landscapes between the Mountain and the Sea” as World Heritage has play an important role in the discussion if cities should be considered as Cultural Landscape in the World Heritage List. Furthermore, it represents an example of Historic Urban Landscape recommendation as an approach to understand urban heritage in a World Heritage Site and, it reflects as well, the type of contemporary nominations issues for World Heritage nowadays.

Notes 1. 2010, United Nation.

2. Rio de Janeiro: Sugar Loaf, Tijuca Forest and the Botanical Gardens.

3. World Heritage Committee. Decision: 27 COM 8C.12 . http://whc.unesco.org/en/decisions/707 4. (v) to be an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement, land-use, or sea-use which is representative of a culture (or cultures), or human interaction with the environment especially when it has become vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change; (vi) to be directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance. (The Committee considers that this criterion should preferably be used in conjunction with other criteria).

5. http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1100 6. 2011, Rio de Janeiro World Heritage Nomination, Page 32.

7. Jokilehto, J., ‘Reflection on HUL as a Tool for Urban Conservation’, in Van Oers and Haraguchi, 2010, p.52.

Figure 20. Rio's landscape. [Source: visitingrio.br]

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

c. Historic Quarter of the Seaport City of Valparaíso as UNESCO site.

Date of Inscription: 2003 Criteria: (iii) Property: 23.2 ha Buffer zone: 44.5 ha Country: Chile

Figure 21. Protected area and buffer zone.

[Source: UNESCO Website]

The first Spanish settlement in Valparaíso was established in 1536 as a small commercial port of Santiago as capital of a region inside of Virreinato del Peru, as a mid-point port between Spain and the Port of Callao in Peru. By the middle of the XVIII Century and up to 1832 Valparaiso was a military port due to the constant England and Netherland invasions in the area. This situation allowed the first occupation of edges on the hills, at a height of about 50 meters above sea to have visual control of the coastal landscape and defense of the city. However, the true expansion and construction of the coastal urban border in Valparaíso, is verified after Chile independence in 1818 when the total opening of the Chilean trade, caused an economic and cultural pivot that was reflected by the economic and commercial development of the country. This situation stablished the beginning of a process of radical transformation in the port area and in the city. From the middle of the 19th Century to the beginning of the 20th Century, the urban landscape of the city was transformed as result of the transformation and modernization of the port and the commercial and cultural exchange between Chile and European capitalists.

The ‘Historic Area of the Port City of Valparaiso’ was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2003 as Cultural Heritage classification under the criteria (iii) as “an exceptional testimony to the early phase of globalization in the late 19th century, when it became the leading merchant port on the sea routes of the Pacific coast of South America”1. Valparaiso natural amphitheater-like setting of the city is characterized by a vernacular urban fabric adapted to the hills that have a large variety of church towers and a contrast geometric scheme used in the flat sector.

Since the inscription several projects have been developed for the protection and preservation of the historical values of the city center. However, after more than a decade as World Heritage Site, the property has presented several problems in the management of the site that could be identified in State of Conservation Reports since 2013 to nowadays.

The analysis of the “Historic Quarter of the Seaport City of Valparaíso as UNESCO site” as case study for this thesis, represented an opportunity to understand the dynamics of this World Heritage Site inserted into a living urban territory. In this sense, “the coastal city of Valparaíso, must be assumed as a dynamic heritage, inserted into a living urban territory, needing to define the measuring indicators of the state of conservation and development of this urban-coastal heritage. Its management undertakes a direct

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assessment of historical roles, the binding participation of social partners, promoting an appropriate architecture, and a constant search for ecological preservation between natural and cultural resources”2.

In this respect ICOMOS report done in 2013 and the ICOMOS Heritage Impact Assessment done in 2016 to identify the impact of how some ongoing urban projects on the protected site. These reports have delivered a set of recommendations that should be implemented to avoid damage into the Outstanding Universal Value of Valparaiso.

Because of this, by analyzing 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2017 UNESCO State of Conservation reports3 it is possible to understand the that the main recommendation was to consider a larger scope in the analysis and conservation of the World Heritage property, understanding the relation between the protected area, the city and the port, on a common and more holistic vision of how to deal with different plans and projects in a World Heritage Site without affecting neither the Outstanding Universal Value of the Property, nor the interested of the community or the condition of the city as City-Port. In this case, the World Heritage Committee have encouraged the State Party to follow UNESCO recommendation on Historical Urban Landscape4 as an approach to work with.

To conclude, it can be said that Valparaiso’s case recalls the importance of the Historic Urban Landscape approach for the identification, conservation and management of heritage with the development within an overall sustainability framework in short and long term. This situation constitutes nowadays a challenging ongoing process for Chile as State Party, in which the cooperation between interrelated political levels, international institutions and the stakeholders involved have demonstrate that throughout a participative and holistic approach like the one proposed by the Historic Urban Landscape, it constitutes a possible way to deal with the dynamics, changes and developments in a World Heritage in urban context.

Notes 1. Government of Chile, Municipality of Valparaiso. (2001). Nomination file.

2. Aguilar, M. F. Paradigma moderno de la ciudad puerto de valparaíso: Conservación dinámica de un paisaje histórico urbano.

Arquisur, 1(6), 54-69.

3. UNESCO, W. (2013) UNESCO State of Conservation report “Historic Quarter of the Seaport City of Valparaíso”. Source: http:// whc.unesco.org/en/soc/1916 UNESCO, W. (2014) UNESCO State of Conservation report “Historic Quarter of the Seaport City of Valparaíso”. Source: http://whc. unesco.org/en/soc/2847 UNESCO, W. (2015) UNESCO State of Conservation report “Historic Quarter of the Seaport City of Valparaíso”. Source: http://whc. unesco.org/en/soc/3306 UNESCO, W. (2017) UNESCO State of Conservation report “Historic Quarter of the Seaport City of Valparaíso”. Source: http://whc. unesco.org/en/soc/3586 4. UNESCO, W. (2011). Recommendation on Historic Urban Landscape.

Figure 22. Valparairo's ampitheather landscape. [Source: turismochile.ch]

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Conclusion Part I

Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

Heritage is not an island, the importance of the Historic Urban Lanscape approach.

The contemporary world is dominated by global exchanges and constant information that accelerates all social and economic processes. This situation affects urban life in a way that it positions cities as the main environment for human existence in the 21th Century. In this context, urban heritage plays an important role, as an expression of history of the place and human identity. In this sense, conserving urban heritage is crucial for a sustainable urban life and a sustainable urban development process.

However, in order to implement an effective urban conservation plan, it is important to understand that the city is more than the relation between buildings, but rather an organism in constant movement, shaped by the interactions of economic, social, and cultural forces.

In this sense, the long path since the early implementation of the World Heritage Convention, and especially the past debates on urban conservation have demonstrated that heritage is not an island.

Following this point of view, during the last decade a new approach has been developed to solve the inconsistencies of the traditional management plans for the conservation of cultural heritage in urban context to include different elements that compose the urban landscape beyond a narrow view of heritage protection of sites and buildings within it. This approach understands that, for the heritage conservation discussion, cities are complex organisms that need to be studied, managed and envisioned as a continuous process, in a broader cultural, economic and social perspective, in which heritage is not only an artefact to be protected.

In this regard, the urban conservation discussion needs to be integrated into the overall dynamics of the urban planning and urban development, whether it relates to monuments, architecture, archeological areas, whole historic cities, or even for intangible assets contributing to the urban landscape. Because of these reasons, it is important to recall the importance of the conservation of urban heritage as a part of the contemporary discussion regarding World Heritage. This consideration is even more pertinent given that, today more than one third of the World Heritage properties are located in urban contexts, exposed to the dynamics of the 21st Century urban life.

In this sense, the 2011 Recommendation on Historic Urban Landscape is an attempt to address the issues of urban conservation as international policy, and its implication in each local context. In this

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Conclusion Part I

respect, the main contribution of this methodological approach is to develop a more integral vision that implies the consideration of all the components of the urban landscape and its territoriality, whether they are natural or constructed, as well as the social fabric with its inhabitants and their traditional social practices. Moreover, the reinforcement and empowerment of local communities in identifying and taking part in the conservation discussion represents a challenge full of opportunities to develop shortterm and long-term policies that would allow the conservation of heritage values within sustainable urban conservation processes, and according to each community and context.

Furthermore, the incorporation of the methodological approach of the historical urban landscape means a contribution to better management of the World Heritage properties in urban context. In this sense, focusing on the Latin American and the Caribbean region, the implementation of the ‘Historic Urban Landscape’ approach signifies a challenge and an opportunity of each Nation to develop an interrelated and articulated system inside a national policy of heritage protection that would be responsible not only for the implementation of the Convention (and the management of the World Heritage properties inscribed). It would also imply a wide-ranging analysis of each local context and its heritage values, and it would allow new inputs to protect them. This situation would signify a reinforcement for policy frameworks, local capacity and an increase in community participation.

In this respect, the Latin American and the Caribbean region has witnessed many diverse attempts to develop and implement heritage policies, and each of them has a different way to appropriate the Convention. However, it can be said that in each current context, for each State, a re-definition of the existing frameworks and systems dealing with urban conservation is required, following the challenge of connecting heritage and territory, and breaking down the idea of heritage as something static, which would strengthen both socially and politically the new notions of heritage.

Finally, the 1972 World Heritage Convention itself stresses that one of its aims is “to give heritage a role in the life of the community”. In this sense, the current approaches in urban disciplines and in international urban conservation represent the gradual evolution of urban conservation concepts, its development through international policies, and a global opportunity for local results.

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Part II

The City of La Plata.

Reflecting on the ‘Historic Urban Landscape’ approach and 'urban heritage' values

Part II_ A

The City of La Plata and the UNESCO World Heritage List nomination project

Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

Figure 23. The city of La Plata from a plane. [Source: Aeronautica de la Provincia de Buenos Aires]

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Introducing the City of La Plata

Part II_ A

_1_ Introducing the city of La Plata

Foundation date: 1882 Population: 787.294 Location: Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

"I do not know if there are many people in Europe who have attended the inauguration of a big future-city. From my point of view, I consider that these words "inauguration" and "future-city", do not match between them. A railroad is inaugurated and, when the rails can take the wagon. They can bring the first stone of a bridge, a school and a cathedral.

These buildings are precise elements throughout a planned city and its ‘foundations’ can indicate the starting point and the necessary expectations. But the word "city" can only be applied to a place that has become historical, where first chronicle and then history have given importance, and the presence of men would become numerous and perpetual to grown through generations to secure its place among other cities. [...]

In America, the verb "found a city" is conjugated in all times and since all times. There have always been founders of cities; there are still some.

But what it is strange, is that none of these founded cities have failed their destiny; they wanted to be cities since their birth and they have always been cities." Émile Daireaux1, 1886

“Yo no sé si hay en Europa muchas personas que hayan asistido a la inauguración de una gran ciudad futura. Por mi parte considero que estas palabras, “inauguración” y “ciudad futura”, no calzan entre ellas. Se inaugura una vía férrea y, cuando los rieles pueden llevar el vagón, se coloca la primera piedra de un puente, de una escuela y de una catedral.

Son edificios precisos por los que comienza la planificación de la ciudad y cuyos cimientos indican el coronamiento y la expectativa necesaria, pero la palabra “ciudad” sólo puede aplicarse a un lugar que se ha convertido en histórico, al que la crónica primero y la historia a continuación le han otorgado importancia, y donde la presencia del hombre, numerosa, perpetua y creciente a través de generaciones, le ha asegurado un lugar entre sus hermanas. […] En América, el verbo “fundar una ciudad” se conjuga en todos los tiempos y por todos los tiempos; siempre ha habido fundadores de ciudades, todavía los hay; pero lo que es más extraño es que ninguna de estas ciudades fundadas ha fallado en su destino; quisieron ser ciudades desde su nacimiento y ciudades han sido siempre.” Émile Daireaux, 1886

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About the history preface

Part II_ A

_2_ About the history preface

2.1. Historical briefing of Argentinian National process after Independence and the “Generación del 80’s” vision: The territorial planning process of the region Pampeana, the City of Buenos Aires as the Capital of the Nation and La Plata as Capital City of the Province of Buenos Aires.

In the begging of the 19th Century, after the Independence as a Spanish colony2, Argentina started a process of consolidation as a new country. The first decennaries of the 19th Century was a period of internal discrepancies and battles between ‘unitarios’ and ‘federales’3. These two groups were divided according their regional interests, and these conflicts of interests led to a permanent state of civil war between 1819 to 18614. After this period, with the unification of the Nation as Republican System, it started a transitional period from 1962 to 1880 of a long and progressive construction of the Argentinian State. This period is characterized by a holistic political project that based on multiple strategies reinforced Argentina national identity as a Modern State.

In this sense, the ‘Generación del ‘805’ was the name that historians would give to a group of politicians of that transitional period. These group were influenced by the ideals of the members of the ‘Generación del ’376’ represented by the literates J. B. Alberdi, D. F. Sarmiento, E. Echeverría, J. M. Gutiérrez, among others. These literates had been forced to exile in the turbulent years of the civil war and, during their years abroad they had taken a step forward in trying to understand the Argentinian reality and its prospects to transfer the Illustration7 ideals without directly inserting them into the Argentinian context.

In this regard, they believed that the Progress of the Nation was founded in the bases of political, economic, social and territorial actions which they could put into practice when they could return to Argentina.

For the purpose of this thesis research, the analysis of this particular chapter of Argentinian history will be analyzed in its historical context to expresses the aims that guided the projected developed.

In this sense, without explaining the whole framework in which the ‘Generación del ’80 ’ developed their actions, it can be said that they developed a long-term holistic project in which the main concepts that guided their actions were based on: - - -

Political Republican System; Territorial control; Economic insertion in the global market.

In this sense, the whole project was composed of interrelated objectives and strategies. “Four big problems worried Argentinian’s statesmen then: immigration promotion, economic progress, the State’s legal order and the development of public education” (Romero, 1946).8 In this sense, the Republican system gave political and administrative structure that allowed to stablish at National level the bases to visualize a Modern country which would base its economy on agriculture exportation. Because of these reasons, the ‘Pampeana’ region territory has played an important role in the process of the foundation of Argentina as a Modern country and, the colonization and foundation of cities in the region become an important asset to guarantee the project development.

To explain such historical endevour for Argentina, this thesis took as point of reference the work done by Pesoa 2012 "Una Ciudad para La Pampa", and PhD work in History of Leão Dornelles 2017.

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The Pampeana region.

The Pampa is a huge plain that occupies approximately one fifth part of the total Argentina’s current area. This type of landscape was so unique for the Spaniards arriving in America that they adopt a non-

Figure 24. Pampeana landscape [Source: Thesis author photo]

Spanish word to define it: “Pampa”, which it in Quechua9 means “plain land”.

The Pampeana region was practically unknow by the Spanish conquerors, and it was inhabited by nomadic native tribes. These lands during the Viceroyalty occupation had remained quite marginalized until 1776 when it was created the Viceroyalty of the Rio de La Plata and Buenos Aires’s port village was named as Viceroyalty’s capital.

Figure 25 shows the Spanish occupation (white) and the native occupation (grey) before the creation of the Viceroyalty of Rio de La Plata in 1776. Moreover, in the Image XX it can be seen the location of the cities of that time (Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Mendoza, San Luis, Cordoba, Tucuman, etc.). These cities were created due to their military importance as intermediate points between Buenos Aires’s colonial port and other Spanish colonies like Viceroyalty of Peru. In this sense, as it can be seen in the image, most

Figure 25. [ Source: Own processing image, over an analysis in Pesoa, 2012, page 26.]

of the territory was unknown by the Spaniards and the lands were not used for any economic activity.

However, after the creation of the Viceroyalty of Rio de La Plata, this unknown territory started to be progressively considered due its agriculture potential and, after Independence new cities were founded due to the necessity of expansion of agricultural grazing. This situation, led to constant conflicts to gain

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About the history preface

land from the native tribe’s occupation and constant attacks into the agriculture grazing territory and the new settlements.

Figure 26 (a) shows the Spanish occupation and the native occupation after the creation of the Viceroyalty of Rio de La Plata in 1776 until Argentinian Independence when a river constituted a symbolic border

a.

b.

Figure 26. [ Source: Own processing image, over an analysis in Pesoa, 2012, page 29 and 42]

between them. While image (b) show the progressively expansion of the agriculture grazing over the territory of the region after the Independence.

The processes that guided the extension of the agriculture grazing into the region and the consequent border modification between the native territory with the unknown territory10 was a complex and controversial process. However, these circumstances allowed, by the half of the 19th Century to start a process of territorial planning in the Pampeana region that was vital for the construction of the Argentinian cities that we know today.

The territorial planning process of the Pampeana region.

In 1821 it was created the “Topographic department of the Province of Buenos Aires” which established the guidelines for planning, setting and building cities in the region “Pampeana”. In this sense, this Department oversaw the plan of every city and the territory around it reserved for agriculture (Pesoa, 2012). During the first years, the towns recreated the Spanish model of an urban and agricultural units.

Figure 27. The surveyor, drawing by León Palliere (1864), Pelvilain lithography, original measurements: 31.5 x 18.5cm. [Source: Pesoa, 2012]

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

In this sense, in 1825 it was established that in all cities some plots facing the main plaza would be reserved for the institutional buildings (church, town hall and school), retaking the idea of the plaza as functional and spatial core of the city.

Nevertheless, it was until 1852 that the main number of cities were founded and, from that moment on it is possible to recognize a model of city that can be defined as “Pampeana”. The territory was the main condition for developing the ideas about how it should be the new State: “(...) the problem suffered by Argentina as a Republic is the territory extension” and “(...) by not having the society gathered, every kind of government becomes impossible; the municipality does not exist, the police cannot work, and the civil justice does not have the means to reach the people out of the law”11 (Sarmiento, 1845 in Pesoa 2012). In this sense, the territorial planning process of the Pampeana region allowed the foundation of hundreds of cities, that followed a ‘Modelo de ciudad Pampeana’ (Pampeana city model) building up a city-network that would reinforced the construction of Argentina as a Modern State.

In this context, while the cities were traced, other aspects of the holistic project were implemented. In this regard, the proposals based their action on attracting European immigrants to populate the interior of the country (and especially the Pampeana region). This situation can be summarized in Alberdi’s premise “Gobernar es poblar”12 written in his book ‘Bases y Puntos de Partida para la Organización Política de la República Argentina’13 (1852). In this regard, when the main law of the Argentina as a Modern Nation was approved, it included among their legal implications, almost as an advertisement

Figure 28. Agriculture workers. [Source: Biblioteca Nacional Digital]

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About the history preface

the guarantee of a series of civil rights that the immigrants already had in their homeland and that they would have if they want to live in the Argentinian territory14. From that moment, it emerged the Argentinian immigration policy15 and, once the immigrants started to arrive in the country, they were conveniently distributed to different points of the territory to secure the development of the system.

In this sense, the holistic project would have never been possible without the improvements on infrastructure and agriculture production introduced in the country: the railway network expansion, the port modernization, the improvements in the navigation of rivers, and to inventions like the telegrapher that facilitated communication and reduced distances in the vast territory of Argentina.

Moreover, the introduction of the metal wiring to divide the agriculture land allowed to split the ‘estancias’16 in smaller plots ending with the conflicts regarding private property and, the input of the windmill allowed to bring water without depending on the riverbeds level.

In 1862 with the final unification of the National Government, the steps to attract foreign capitals and immigrants, stimulating agricultural production were completely implemented. And, the territorial planning process, the policy strategies about the immigration, the infrastructure improvements, were based in the development of a system to guarantee the main economic activity of the region: cattle and agriculture production. This economical system is known by the historians as ‘Modelo agro-exportador’17.

By 1880, with the actions to attract foreign capitals and immigrants, the “Modelo agro-exportador” was

Figure 29. Buenos Aires's port 1910. [Source: Biblioteca Nacional Digital]

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

Figure 31. (ABOVE) Telegraph workers. [Source: lagalenadelsur.wordpress.com] Figure 32. (BELOW) Train workers. [Source: lagalenadelsur.wordpress.com]

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About the history preface

Figure 33. (ABOVE) Immigrants disembarking in the port of Buenos Aires.[Source: Biblioteca Nacional Digital] Figure 34. (BELOW) Buenos Aires's inmigrant's "Hotel" at lunch time. [Source: Biblioteca Nacional Digital]

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

in totally implementation. In this sense, historians refer to this year as the beginning of period called the alluvial era (Romero, 1946). This period, from 1880-1930 represented a period in which the country, but more specifically the Pampeana region, definitively entered into the global market, being symbolically called as the “Granary of the world”.

The City of Buenos Aires as the Capital of the Nation and La Plata as Capital City of the Province of Buenos Aires.

Moreover, from an administrative point of view, 1880 is a turning point. In that year, politicians of the city of Buenos Aires tried to establish total control of the city government and to the government of the Province with the same name.

Because of this conflict and, as way to finish with all the years of civil struggles, it was established that the customs revenues of Buenos Aires’ port would have been nationalized to give concrete possibility of stimulating the economic (and therefore urban growth) of the interior of the country (Pesoa, 2012).

In this regard, the National government declared the federalization of the city of Buenos Aires as the Capital of the Nation, and therefore it established the creation of a new capital city for the homonymous province.

Dardo Rocha18, the governor of the Province of Buenos Aires after that resolution had to face the requirement to install the Provincial government and administration in another city. In this sense, it was necessary to found a new city for a new capital and, for such an enterprise he decided to plan and found a city from scratch with the aims that this Capital would summarize the ideals of progress that the country aimed (Navas R., 2001). In 1882 it is placed the foundation stone of the City of La Plata.

The City of La Plata.

In 1881 it was created a special Commission to study the location of the new capital which and after the analysis of possible locations, the governor Dardo Rocha chose an area known as “Lomas de Ensenada” (Ensenada’s hills)19. The location of the city was chosen because of geographical and political reasons: The new city had to be near the City of Buenos Aires, but quite far to guarantee the new city political

Figure 35. Thomas Bradley photo took during the 'foundational stone' celebration day. La Plata, 19th November 1882.

[Source: Argentina National Lybrary . Digital photos]

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independence. Moreover, it should have had an easy communication with both Buenos Aires National Capital and with the interior of the Province. However, the most important reason that defined it location was contiguousness to a natural cove of La Plata’s river that allowed the location of a natural Port connected to the city.

In this sense, the area chosen was adjacent to the Río de La Plata and connected to Buenos Aires through the “Buenos Aires-Tolosa railroad”. The region designated for the foundational plan was adjacent to the town of Tolosa (founded in 1871) and it used to belong to Pereyra Iraola’s family “estancia”, where they had previously planted a huge eucalyptus forest.

The images 36 a, b and c shows the evolution of the different two previous projects and the final design with the “Paseo del Bosque” inclusion in the area of the eucalyptus forest.

Moreover, while the commission was defining the location, the governor decreed an International Contest to design the main public buildings: Government House, Palace of Justice, Government Notary, Municipal Building, the Cathedral, Police Department, etc. As well, the Department of Engineers oversaw the design and the future construction of other public buildings (Morris, 1983).

About the history preface

a.

b.

c.

Figure 36. a, b and c. [Source: Teran, 1983]

Once the location was chosen, the ‘Department of Engineers of the Province of Buenos Aires’ (which were members of the ex- ‘Topographic Department of the Province of Buenos Aires’) developed several projects to define the plan of the New Capital.

The historians cannot decide if the final project was probably designed by the engineer Pedro Benoit or if the design was product of the work of a group of professionals of the Engineers Departments which Benoit was its Design Director and, as well the Executive Director of the Department of Public buildings of La Plata (Leão Dornelles, L. d. (2017).

By April 1882, it was enacted the founding law of La Plata and at November 19 the foundation stone was placed, and the construction begun.

In 1890, (according to records) it was printed the map titled “La Plata”, in scale 1: 6666, considered as the “official plan” (Baez, A. L., 2000).

Figure 37. Foundation plan of the city of La Plata (1882).

The original is preserved in the Museo y Archivo Dardo Rocha in La Plata.

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

The foundational plan was circumscribed in the square of 5 km per 5 km (the specific analysis of the morphological analysis of the Foundational Plan will be developed in Part C of this thesis).

For the purpose of this chapter it is important to describe the principles that guided the design of the foundational plan of the city.

La Plata’s foundational plan ideals.

A superficial analysis of the foundational plan gave certain representations that defined the foundational plan as a mixed composition of the Spanish colonial grid with baroque and classical inputs, because, it is possible to find a square grid like in the colonial Spanish cities, a central square with the most important public buildings and, the apparent symmetry and the diagonals of baroque formal repertoire (Morris, 1983) However, La Plata’s foundational plan was designed following the spirit of its time led by the hygienist ideals of 19th Century and, at the same time it represented the local evolution of the “Modelo de Ciudad Pampeana” (Pampeana’s city model) developed by the Topographic department and posteriorly by the Engineers Department of the Province of Buenos Aires (Teran, 1983).

In this regard, if we analyze the foundational plan of La Plata, “two general ideas are perceived. These ideas are not separated, and they complemented each other to compose the city and its complexity. The first idea is based on a concept of “ideal city”, which is directly related to the second theoretical idea, which would be the “hygienist” idea” (Leão Dornelles, 2017).

Because of this reason, as the foundational plan of the City of La Plata aimed to represent the Progress of the Nation, the plan emerged from the most Modern ideals of the 19th Century and the hygienist movement in which the public spaces disposition, the urban layout, the urban grove, etc. were key elements that composed the characteristics of the city. Moreover, the political aimed to make La Plata a symbol of National Progress was recalled in the hierarchy and the strong monumental character of the foundational plan.

Furthermore, as a city designed and built by the 19th Century, the city adapted to the demands of the new urban infrastructure. It was the first city in Latin America to have electricity in the whole city and the first to have a tram system inside the city that connected different points of

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Figure 38. La Plata foundational plan [Souce: Leão Dornelles, 2017]

Figure 39. La Plata's Law courts construction 1885. [Source: http://laplatamagica.com]

Figure 40. La Plata's port construction 1887. [Source: http:// puertolaplata.com]

About the history preface

the foundational plan. The railway network was designed to serve with different lines, both the city and the port area; the circulation system foresees an urban layout that guarantees products easy access from the rural areas towards the city center and towards the port in which as well it was considered the development of industrial areas (like slaughterhouses).

Garnier (1992) expressed that in La Plata’s foundational plan, it can be seen the willingness to adapt the local urban tradition with elements charged of change and progress symbolism. In this sense, he wrote that La Plata is a “a meeting point between the colonial tradition and the modern, is a perfectly achieved trans-cultured model “(Garnier, A., 1992: 44, in Losano G., 2006).

In this regard, the foundational plan was not just the circumscribed 25 km2 of the urban area of the City, and the plan was part of an integral project that linked the “tierras de pan llervar”20 with the city, therefore the city with the port, and Province with the city. In this regard, the Monumental Axis was intended to be a link between the interior of the province and ‘abroad’ in a context in which the interior of the province exported raw materials and meat to Europe. This situation constituted a symbolism of the National Progress that in the foundational plan was ‘very significant: the new city is expressed as interface between the deep Argentina (the Pampa, the cattle, the goods of the country (...) and its opening to the world (the port, the ocean, Europe). Therefore, the (monumental) axis would constitute that nexus that concentrated the political power (with the Municipal Palace, the Legislature and the Provincial Government House) (…)’ (Garnier A., 1992, in Losano G., 2006).

After the city was built and the population started to growth, in 1889 the city was awarded at the ‘International Exposition of Paris’ with two different honors: ‘Better city of the Future’, and ‘Best built

Figure 40 and 41. Photos taken by Thomas Bradley, in 1985 [Source: Argentina National Lybrary

Figure 42 and 43. Photos taken by Thomas Bradley, in 1985. Slaughterhouses in La Plata' Port.

[Source: Argentina National Lybrary

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

urban realization’. The city was described as the physical realization of the city described in Julio Verne’s book ‘Les cinq cents millions de la Bégum’21. In this sense, the foundational plan of La Plata was expected to grow as the product of the Progress of the Nation and, as result of such a process the city would become an ideal model; albeit it was a sort of Platonic expectation (Teran, 1983).

2.2. The first 100 years of the new Capital city.

The historical development of the City in its history was not going to respond to the planned mechanism after a few decades of the foundational plan was constructed, when the economical and the political situation of Argentina changed.

In this sense, at the light of the last years of the 19th Century and the first years of the XXs Century, the politicians that were guided by past liberal ideology gradually become conservative and, the economic model of the “Modelo Agro-exportador” an elitist model that benefited a minority oligarchy while the rest of society was dissatisfied with the situation. In the first Decennary of the 20th Century, the immigrants, that were already settled in the Argentina started to express their political interests and to bring their own ideas in the Argentinian political scene.

In 1912, the “Ley de Voto Universal Obligatorio” (Universal mandatory suffrage law) changed the history of Argentina and from that moment on, new political ideas would change the society and, as consequence the image of the city.

In this regard, the La Plata’s urban history can be divided in 522 different stages that represented the social and political changes that were reflected in the city and, as consequence in the urban features of the foundational plan. These stages are: - - - - -

Foundational Process (1882 - 1910); Consolidation Process (1910 - 1932); Transformation Process (1932 - 1960); Sprawl Process (1960 - 1982); 1982 - present...

The foundational process, as it was explained before represented the ideals of ‘National Progress’ which is found in the Hygienist movement premises, the eclecticism of the foundational buildings and the Republican ideals that where built in La Plata’s foundational plan.

However, the La Plata foundational plan had never represented a strict plan to follow. In this regard, it is important to explain that since the city of La Plata was born as a Political decision, all the changes suffered in the foundational plan would have their origin in other political decisions.

In this sense, from the very first years of its foundation, the foundational plan suffered alterations in its original planning due to adaptations or improvements in the general model. These alterations looked for remodeling or building new spaces (for example, 1902 the central station would be move from the planned building on the street 50, between 6 and 7, to their actual location between the streets 1, diagonal 80 and 44; or the lands of “Paseo del Bosque” were reduce because of the insertion of new public-private functions, like a hippodrome, the buildings of the National University of La Plata, or lands for public-private institutions like two local Football clubs). Even these modifications into the foundational plan were not done in the logic of the foundational plan destruction, they would lead in the future to different complex situations about the “Paseo del Bosque” as a Park.

However, the “foundational process” and the “consolidation process” can have a similar analysis, because

Figure 44. Illustrative section of the urban profile with the heights in the first years of the city. [Source: Own processing over Leão Dornelles, 2017]

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Figure 45. Buenos Aires's Port in 1930's crisis. [Source: Argentina National Lybrary]

the country was still immersed in the same political ideals that continue to pursue the development of the social and economic model that promoted the creation of the city.

In that time, the city progressively gained population and, even if there was not an “urban construction code”, the new buildings were built “naturally” on a commonly followed model.

In this regard, it is important to explain that 1917 represent the year of the end of the “Modelo Agroexportador” and a new time into Argentina’s history. In this regard, a new political party assumed the government in Argentina, and 1st World War changed the dynamics of the World economy, specially to Argentina as raw material’s exporter. Although the main economic activity was still the agriculture exportation, the kind of exportations and the international relations changed. While Europe was in immersed in the World Wars, Argentina started an economic relation with the United States, in which United Stated would import industrial products in order to develop an incipient Argentinian National Industry. However, except for the case of “agricultural machinery, the North Americans did not contribute to generate exportations, and new incomes for Argentina because the possibilities of placing Argentinian traditional products in the United States were remote. This new economic relationship created a strong modification into the balance of payments and the situation became an insoluble problem” (Gallo, E. and Cortés Conde, R., 1995 in Losano G., 2006).

In this sense, not only the economic and politics dynamics changed, Argentina started to look more towards North America and not only into Europe, because of the ideas and urban paradigms in Argentina began to change.

In this regard, in 1924 in La Plata was created the local ‘Ordinance 40’ rewarding future constructions.

This Ordinance encouraged to stand out for extended high-rises. The buildings heights were set at a minimum of 10.50 meters and those who build more than one floor are rewarded with taxes reduction.

The ordinance was looking for city image that began to grow in the vertical (Ordinance n. 40/24).

Figure 46. Illustrative section of the urban profile with heights driven from 1924 Ordinance. [Source: Own processing over Leão Dornelles, 2017]

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

Figure 47 and figure 48. La Plata 1932. [Source: laplatamagica.blogspot.com]

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About the history preface

Moreover, during 1930s decennary the city started to suffer of their first transformation due an ambiguous situation. While the foundational plan was still under construction, the government evidenced an anxiety for renewal and modernization specially in the center of the city foundational plan.

As it can be seen in the Figure 47 and Figure 48 taken in 1932, at the 50th Anniversary of the Foundational Plan, the city started to show an unregulated urban profile between the heights of the civil architecture buildings.

The first time that the foundational plan of La Plata was declared as Heritage Value was in 1949.

The local government, pointed out the necessity to conserve the characteristics of the foundational plan and, it established a series of local norms to preserve the foundational buildings and the publics spaces in the foundational layout (Ordinance no.

43/1949). This regulation purchased the heights in line with Ordinance 9/1932 which tried to keep civil architecture high-rises with a different relation respect of the Monumental Axis.

The fact that the municipal ordinance of 1949 had concentrated only on the preservation of the urban layout and the foundational buildings, it showed a disregard for the preservation of the private ‘historical-architectural’ buildings (private buildings built in the foundational time). In this sense, by not specifying what type of preservation would be hold, Ordinance 43/1949 becomes a very broad and weak regulation. In this way, such legislation did not prevent many transformations that took place in the 1950s and 1960s, regarding the civil architecture inside the foundational plan or the urban sprawl beyond the foundational area.

Moreover, the civil construction was affected by the promulgation of the National Horizontal Property Law (National Law nº.13512) that was enacted in 1948 which aimed at a development of the civil construction industry in a historical moment were residential housing were needed and the city got densified much more easily because the plots were subdivided into internal smaller units.

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

1900

1929

1943

1966

Figure 49. Illustrative schemes about lot ocupation. [Source: Own processing over Teran, 1983]

In this regard, in 1963 it was enacted the Local Ordinance 3001/1963, which maintained the precepts of the 1932 and 1949 ordinances regarding historical buildings, but allowed more height in the civil constructions and, based on the National Horizontal Property law, it was encouraged the use of the free space in the interior of the plots. This situation densified even more the plots and it degraded the hygienist concept of the “green lung” inside of each residential block.

Furthermore, in 1958-1962, the National Government created the “Plan Regulador de Buenos Aires” (Buenos Aires regulation plan), to regulate the land occupation of the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires. Even the Plan did not bring any significative improvement regarding urban conservation for La Plata, it fomented La Plata’s sprawl towards Buenos Aires direction.

In this sense, in 1970s it is important to recall that the acceleration of the growth of the city population had a direct influence on La Plata’s urbanization process. The population grew especially in the places where it was previously concentrated, and then it sprawled into the periphery area without having completely occupied the foundation area (Terán, F., 1983).

In 1977 it was created the ‘Law of Territorial Regulation and Land Use of the Province of Buenos Aires’, this provincial law was reflected at Local level by the Municipal Ordinance no. 4495/1978 a ‘Preliminary Zoning Planning according to land uses’. Even this regulation did not increase the heights levels and it apparently was looking to control private constructions, in the end it had contrary effects in the image of the city. The city urban landscape was affected by the distortion of the municipal line axes (Linea Municipal), which allowed taller heights when the building was not in the municipal line axis. This situation strongly affecting the urban profile of the city and, for the very first time, there were building higher than the foundational axis public building heights.

In this sense, in at the light of the 1982 Centenary Anniversary of the La Plata, in the 1980s decennary it was promoted for the very first time an important discussion regarding the Heritage Values of La Plata and the changes into the Urban Landscape of the city. This situation opened a long discussion regarding urban planning and urban conservation that it arrives until nowadays. This next period, from 1980 to nowadays will be analyzed in the next chapters of this thesis.

Figure 50. Illustrative urban profile section, from the influence of Law 13.512 and of Ordinance 43/49. [Source: Own processing over Leão Dornelles, 2017]

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About the history preface

Notes 1. Emilio H Daireaux (1843 - 1916) was a French-Argentine writer, lawyer and journalist. He wrote “Life and Customs in El Plata” that contains an extensive and documented description of the country, its history, its institutional and legal organization, its economy and public finances, as well as a rich sociological exploration of customs, social and cultural life, regional productions, etc. which at present continues to be a valuable source of information for historiographic research.

2. 1810-1816 3. The first group aimed an organization of a country with a centralized system and prevailed the need for a national government with political and economic powers to distribute equitably the benefits of political unity, the provinces would not have autonomies as administrative districts controlled by the central government. While the second wanted to keep the powers of the provinces and promote a federal state in which each province would be economically independent from the central power.

4. This historical period is not going to be explained in this thesis. It is just being explained contextualized the panorama at the beginning of the Century.

5. “the people of the 1880’s” in English.

6. “The people of the 37’s” made reference to intellectuals that need to exile during J. M. de Rosas government in Buenos Aires. Their members followed the ideas of liberal democracy, promoting a mixed organization of the country in response to the confrontation between ‘federales’ and ‘unitarios’.

7. Under the influences of Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Pierre Leroux, Lamennais and the Germans Hegel and Savigny.

8. Inca’s language.

9. Thesis author translation. Original text: “Cuatro grandes problemas preocuparon a los estadistas argentines de entonces: el fomento de la inmigración, el progreso económico, la ordenación legal del Estado y el desarrollo de la educación pública”.

10. Several “expeditions” and “campaings” against the native population were done during the 1820s to 1880s in all the current Argentinian territory to secure the domain of the land. From 1820 to 1834 several campaigns were done in the Pampeana. In 1867 the limit was extended until the current territory of Rio Negro and Neuquen. From 1870 to 1884, it was organized in the current territory of the Patagonia, this process in known as “campaña del desierto” (Desert’s campaigns). From 1870-1917, it was organized the last “campaign’s” in the North-east current territory of Argentina.

11. Thesis author translations. Original fragments: “…el mal que aqueja a la República Argentina es la extensión” y “…no habiendo sociedad reunida, toda clase de gobierno se hace imposible; la municipalidad no existe, la policía no puede ejercerse y la justicia civil no tiene medios para alcanzar a los delincuentes” (Sarmiento, 1845).

12. “Govern is to populate” (Thesis author translation).

13. That book, was used as the base of the Argentinian Main Law (Constitución) that was approved in 1853 and it is based on: the republican representative and federal system, in which the relations between the central power and the provincial powers are stipulated by the law; the citizens civil and political rights and, their obligations; the property regime; the free transit of internal rivers and, the encouragement of immigration reflected in the national immigration policy.

14. ‘Nos los representantes del pueblo de la Nación Argentina, reunidos en Congreso General Constituyente por voluntad y elección de las provincias que la componen, en cumplimiento de pactos preexistentes, con el objeto de constituir la unión nacional, afianzar la justicia, consolidar la paz interior, proveer a la defensa común, promover el bienestar general, y asegurar los beneficios de la libertad, para nosotros, para nuestra posteridad, y para todos los hombres del mundo que quieran habitar en el suelo argentino (...)

Argentina National Main Law. Preamble fragment.

15. The Argentinian immigration policy expected to encourage the immigration of citizens from England and France, encourage by the ideals stablished by the ‘Generación del 37’. However, the immigrants (of the first immigration stage) mostly arrived from European countries like Italy and Spain. While in a small number arrived from France, Germany and east European Nations. Regarding immigration policy is important to consider that the law did not specified the origin of the immigrants that were welcomed.

16. No English translation. Although the differences, ‘Estancias’ is the traditional name of the Argentinian’s “ranchs”, charectarized by their huge extensions.

17. Economic model based on exportation of agriculture raw materials. This model born in an international context called the international division of work.

18. Dardo Rocha (1838-1921). He was a lawyer, politician, diplomat, military, journalist and Argentine teacher, governor of the province of Buenos Aires (1881-1884). He founded the cities of La Plata, Necochea, Pehuajó, Tres Arroyos and Coronel Vidal. He was also who gave origin to the University of La Plata.

19. “Lomas de Ensenada” is the geographical location of the lands of the Port of Ensenada defined in 1823. These lands are characterized by the geographical conditions of La Plata’s River coastal lines and its swamps. In this case, the Topographical Department analyzed the location of the city in the highest lands of the area to avoid future floods and other related problems. For this reason, the City of La Plata is located 10 km from the river of La Plata.

20. “Tierras de pan llevar” does not have any proper translation in English, the concept is part of the ‘Pampeanas cities model’, where the lands the surrounded the city center were established for the agriculture provision of the urban area.

21. Julio Verne’s book The Begum’s Fortune, refers about an utopian model city which would be constructed and maintained with public health as the primary concern of its government 22. The historical stages have been taken from Leão Dornelles, L. d. (2017), PhD Thesis in History, who took them from the Seminar “Seminario Centros Históricos y Centralidades Urbanas en Buenos Aires”, in the context of the analysis of “La Plata Ciudad Capital”, hold in La Plata in 2010. In the original thesis the stages are: “Foundational Process (1882 - 1910); Consolidation Process (1910 1935); Transformation Process (1935 - 1960); Sprawl Process (1960 - 1980); Decharacterization Process (1980 - present)”. However for the purpose of this chapter explanation and other future explanations, it was decided to modified the periods and the names of the different stages.

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The policy context

Part II_ A

_3_ The policy context

3.1. Briefing regarding Urban Conservation policies and World Heritage policies in Argentina.

Argentina ratified the UN Charter in 1948 and the World Heritage Convention in 19781. The National Law N. 21.836 constitutes the normative basis that Argentina must respect regarding World Heritage protection.

Furthermore, in 1958 Argentina enacted the National Law N. 12.665 and created the National Commission of Argentina for UNESCO (CONAPLU). This government commission constitutes a government agency in relation with all UNESCO field responsibilities. The Executive Secretariat of CONAPLU works in the Ministry of Education of the Nation, being the Education Minister its President, and the National Director of International Cooperation its Secretary. The CONAPLU has the function to link UNESCO activities with the different Departments, Services, Institutions, NGOs and individuals working for the progress of education, science, culture and information in Argentina. Regarding World Heritage issues, it was created the Argentinian World Heritage Committee2 (CAPM) -Comite Argentino para el Patrimonio Mundial-.

This committee is composed by representatives of the different national bodies with competence in Natural and Cultural World Heritage.

In order to fulfill the objectives of the Convention, the CAPM coordinates and articulates the work of the stakeholders and focal points linked to Argentina’s World Heritage and other National or International Institutions. For this reason, it constitutes the link between the National, Provincial and Municipal authorities with UNESCO, the World Heritage Center and its advisory bodies (ICOMOS, IUCN).

Moreover, the National Tangible Heritage is managed by the ‘Comision Nacional de Monumentos, Lugares y Bienes Historicos’3 (The National Commission of Monuments, Places and Historical Goods) – ex National Commission of Museums, Monuments and Historical Places-. This Commission works as a decentralized agency of the Ministry of Culture of the Nation. In 2015, the original law was amended by Law N ° 27.103, which among several changes tending to update the standard, it was removed the word “Museums” from the name of the agency. Due the Museums where already depending since 1984 of the ‘National Directorate of Museums’.

Moreover, regarding Argentina’s Heritage Policies that protects National Heritage, the Article 41 of the National Constitution of the Republic Argentina (Constitución de la República Argentina. In this regard, different legal-frame protect specific type of National Heritage with specific enacted bylaws or decrees.

Furthermore, to complement such legislation, each Province has its own policies to safeguard its heritage. In Buenos Aires Province, the Article 44 of the Provincial Constitution. In this regard, as at National level, different specific bylaws or decrees were enacted to protect Provincial heritage.

As well as the World Heritage Convention, Argentina has ratified different Regional Charters4 about heritage protection. In this sense, the share of the common experiences in the region and the inclusion of Sites in the World Heritage List, have reinforced the Nations commitment with their heritage and, since the beginning of the XXIs Century, this situation was encouraged by the citizen conscience and a growing interest in the heritage field.

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

3.2. La Plata and the UNESCO World Heritage List's prior attempts To understand the process that have led to La Plata’s prior World Heritage List nomination attempts5, it should be analyzed the social context and the heritage conservation discussion regarding the heritage values of the city. Because of this reason it is important to consider the historical relation between the urban planning and heritage conservation policies in the city.

As it was explained in the previous chapter of this thesis, La Plata’s history can be contextualized and divided in 5 stages: “Foundational Process; Consolidation Process; Transformation Process; Sprawl Process” (Leão Dornelles, L. D., 2017) and, finally, the last process from 1980 to the present.

In this sense, the discussion regarding the heritage values of the city had not started until 1978 when a big fire destroyed a National Theater in the Monumental Axis of La Plata’s foundational plan: the Argentinian Theater. This event can be an opportunity to analyze the controversy started regarding the theater’s restoration6. Albeit this situation is not the concern of this study, it can be say that the political decision to replace the damage theater by a new one had opened a deep discussion regarding Heritage in La Plata that seemed to have been sleeping until that moment and that evidenced the different social interests between heritage conservation and urban development7.

In 1980s decennary, the Heritage discussion was intensified with the proximity of the centenary of the foundation of the city in 1982. In that year it was created the Municipal Bylaw nº. 5338/82, referring as Historic Monuments the buildings built earlier that 1930. This law was created to prevent their demolitions, extensions, change of partial or total use and modifications of their principal features. In 1982, it was created the ‘Heritage Commission for Architectural, Monumental and Urbanization of La Plata’ (Comisión del Patrimonio Arquitectónico, Monumental y Urbanístico de La Plata). Moreover, in 1985, it was established for first time the ‘Municipal Heritage Preservation Area’ inside the ‘Architecture and Urban Infrastructure division’ (Dirección de Arquitectura e Infraestructura Urbana) and ‘Private Works and Planning division’ (Dirección de Obras Particulares y Planeamiento). In 1986 it was created the Bylaw nº. 6485/86, which declares several public buildings of La Plata as local architectural heritage.

In 1987, all the areas were merged as part of the Department division of the ‘Municipal Planning Secretary’ (Secretaria de Planeamiento Municipal). In this regard, the department, focused it activity with the aim of promoting urban planning and heritage conservation in the same discussion8.

Moreover, from 1987 to 1991 some restoration works were done in the city, like Meridiano V station and its surroundings, the first railway station of La Plata. These works were done in collaboration with different NGOs and community organizations residing in the area. This experience represented the first community-based design in the city.

Moreover, during that period it was done the “Study of the evolution of the occupation of the territory in La Plata”9. The study included for the first time the whole city of La Plata, not only its foundational monumental axis. This analysis represented an important step for understanding the connection between the urban planning in the city and the heritage conservation discussion. Moreover, it positioned the City into the analysis of ICOMOS Argentina and ICOMOS International. Unfortunately, the study was never officially published due to a change into the local government in 1991.

In this context, it was clear the importance of creating a permanent group to organize a ‘Heritage Catalog’ for the promotion, dissemination and public discussion about Heritage Values. Since that moment, the NGO Foundation CEPA (Fundación Centro de Estudios y Proyectos del Ambiente - CEPA) started working in a Heritage Catalog that would define the built- heritage of the city, including historical buildings and public spaces.

In the begging of the 1990s decennary, with a new Municipal Government, the Department of Heritage Preservation was dissolved, and all the studies produced were never officially published. Since 1992 the heritage conservation discussion in the governmental spheres was only focused into building restoration10, abandoned the urban conservation discussion. In this regard, the only actions to promote urban conservation discussion in the following years were only hold by NGOs and Universities in the city.

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Figure 51. (ABOVE) Old Argentinian Theather. [Source: Diario El Dia, La Plata] Figure 52. (BELOW) Argentinian Theather inaguaration year 1999. [Source: Diario El Dia, La Plata]

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

In this regard, after years of working on the city, in 1997, the NGO ‘Foundation CEPA’ published a pilot project that had as it main objective the nomination of La Plata as a World Cultural Heritage. In this case, Foundation CEPA was the author and initial promoter. However, to be able to present the city into UNESCO World Heritage List, the project needed the Municipality support and sponsorship. This initiative increased the discussion about heritage preservation in the city and, in 1999, it was proposed the inscription of La Plata foundational plan into Argentinian National tentative list. Once the project was inscribed in the Argentinian National tentative list, the NGO started working in the preparation of the Nomination file.

Although the nomination was supported by the Municipal Government of that time, La Plata’s community had criticized the fact that the Local Government had used the project as a ‘political flag’ without giving the necessary support for the preparation of the Nomination file or taking seriously the policy frame implications of an UNESCO Nomination (Leão Dornelles, L. D., 2017). This situation would be later understood as one of the main reason about the failure of that first Nomination attempt.

Foundation CEPA found support by working in partnership with the National University of La Plata and different NGOs. For the first time, there was a discussion at international level about the Heritage Values of La Plata. In this context, different meetings and Conferences were held to discuss the subject11 and, they were useful to bring international attention regarding the importance of the Nomination initiative.

The ‘Outstanding Universal Value’ proposed in that moment recalled the importance of La Plata as a “city designed in the republican independence stage in South America, that preserves its foundational layout practically intact. It is, therefore, a living testimony of the desire of liberty, progress, cartesian rationality and integral aesthetics of its foundational time (…) represented by the urban values as a clear example of the will of progress and peace of a Nation after its Independence(...)”12 (Municipality of La Plata and Foundation CEPA, La Plata Nomination World Cultural Heritage, 1997 in Leão Dornelles, 2017).

Moreover, it is important to recall that in 1999, while the Nomination project was in progress, the three government spheres (National, Provincial and Municipal) had no clear and viable intentions to work together to govern the issue of heritage conservation in the city. In this regard, as it was mentioned in the previous chapters of this thesis, a strong interaction between the municipal, provincial and national spheres is considered by UNESCO when deciding on the possibility of a World Heritage Site; as well as it, the state party’s capacity to manage the heritage site.

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The first Nomination attempt never completed the steps to be presented into the World Heritage Committee. This situation happened because ICOMOS postponed the Site’s Nomination file as it was prepared in that moment. In this respect, ICOMOS adduced the lack of interrelated policies to guarantee the World Heritage protection and the loss of integrity that the original city planning suffered in recent decades (ICOMOS, 2000:48).

ICOMOS understood that the objectives promoted by the Nomination attempt were truly deserving, however, at the time of the nomination file was been discussed, the project should already have had a solid policy frame.

Because of these reasons, in the same year, it was enacted a National Decree (Decree N. 1308) and Provincial policy (Law N. 12.121) to emphasize the heritage significance of La Plata for Argentina.

Moreover, at local level, due to the lack effective regulations related to heritage protection, in 2000 it was created the Site Commission (Comisión del Sitio – CODESI, by the bylaw N. 9103/99) as an agency of public participation with the objective of managing municipal planning, focusing on the preservation of material-cultural heritage and, subsequently, to implement the Plan for Site Management (Plan de Manejo del Sitio), which identified the architectural urban components and the necessary measurements for its management (Bylaw n° 9232/2000).

Furthermore, in the year 2000, after a long debate the city gained its first specific regulation regarding urban development and urban planning: The Code of Territorial Urban Planning and Land Use (Código de Ordenamiento Urbano Territorial y Uso del Suelo). This policy regulated the use of all the territory in the city and its possible modifications. In this document, it was included a chapter determining special areas of heritage preservation (Bylaw nº. 9231/2000).

Although all the efforts, with the refusal of ICOMOS, the Argentinian government decided to withdraw La Plata’s Nomination before the discussion at the Committee, because any disapproval issued by the Committee precludes a subsequent application.

However, this opportunity had left for the first time, National, Provincial and Local policies that protected La Plata’s heritage and regulated the use of the land regarding heritage preservation and urban development (Leão Dornelles, 2017). In this sense, the Nomination attempt had opened a working path on the urban conservation of the city that would be continued in the following years.

Figure 53. (LEFT) La Plata's Cathedral (without the towers) 1982 [Source: Biblioteca Naciona Digital] Figure 54. (RIGHT) La Plata's Cathedral, tower's inaguration day, 1999.[Source: http://www.catedraldelaplata.com/]

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

By the year 2000, the Local Government showed bigger support and gave financial assistance by making an agreement with the ‘Facultad de Arquitectura de la Universidad Nacional de La Plata’ (School of Architecture and Urbanism of the National University of La Plata) to produce an inventory of all the buildings and assets concerning the preservation of building heritage and, to create an Educational Program with the community schools that sought to reinforce in the community the meaning of the heritage values of the city, after decades of losing architectural and heritage values social decharacterization.

Both programs represented huge steps into the definition of the heritage values of the city and a social success for community participation. However, while the educational program represented a successful driver for fruitful debates, the properties inventory opened a strong debate due its economic implications.

The ‘Inventory of Public and Private Assets of Heritage Value’ carried out the first survey on 55,000 plots of the foundational plan where it was identified about 18,000 properties. These properties were buildings with historical, architectural and environmental value, grouped into different categories that later defined different degrees of value and protection. After presenting the result of the work, the CODESI recommended the review and reduction of the inventory. As result, the catalogue was divided in three categories of heritage value and four degrees of protection, reaching a total of 1770 properties to be preserved due to their architectural value and 227 due their morphology and urban value13.

The Inventory opened in the community an old debate: the real statement speculation was affected by the declaration of hundreds of properties in the city center and, an important part of the community was against their duties that would not allow the modification of the buildings that were considered historical by reducing the possible interventions (and the profit) of the properties.

This inventory has represented the clearest reference about which forces were guiding urban planning discussion in the city until that moment (as well in Argentina and Latin America). In this regard, the inventory could not be enacted by the parliament due to the intense discussion and, as it represented an important step to guarantee the requirements pointed by ICOMOS to launch again the Nomination, it was finally promulgated by Municipal Decree N. 1579, in October 2006. With the inventory it was defined the proposal of Special Areas of Conservation 14 and a Management Plan (Plan de Manejo) according to those areas.

A second attempt to nominate La Plata to World Heritage Site was presented in 2007, but again the application was denied by ICOMOS (ICOMOS, 2007:258). In this opportunity, ICOMOS report was more extensive. The report pointed out not only the changes into the elevation of the city in some punctual zones as it was expressed in the past attempt and, it focused its attention into the Outstanding Universal Value of the proposal. In this sense ICOMOS recognized the efforts done from the first attempt and the improvements done to better management as future World Heritage property (ICOMOS, 2007:258), however, in the analysis of the Nomination file, it encouraged to re-define the Outstanding Universal Value proposed in the past Nomination attempt and, to give attention to the Integrity condition of the Outstanding Universal Value, including the territorial scale of La Plata, like the Port and the surrounding rural areas. In that opportunity, the Nomination file was presented as the “Foundational City Area of La Plata” as a Group of Buildings, according 1972 World Heritage Convention and, according to the Operational Guidelines (Annex 3 - 2005) as inhabited historic town.

In this regard, it is important to consider that a World Heritage property as La Plata would have been the first case in the World Heritage List to contemplate a whole city urban fabric in continuum development. In this sense, considering the international discussion regarding urban conservation and urban development, it is important to consider that La Plata’s case represented a tough enterprise for UNESCO and for Argentina as State Party.

ICOMOS report was disclosed in May-June 2007 and the Argentinian government withdrew again the Nomination file of La Plata before it could be analyzed by the World Heritage Committee. As a result, there was never a direct rejection by UNESCO to the case of La Plata and, this situation has left the door open to continue working into a future new nomination attempt.

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The policy context

Figure 55 (LEFT). Historical house and new building in La Plata year 2012 [Source: https://www.wmf.org/project/city-la-plata ] Figure 56 (CENTER) and 56 (RIGHT). A new building in Monumental axis, year 2016 [Source: Leão Dornelles, 2017]

However, in 2007, with a new local government, there was an evident change of interest regarding heritage conservation and, as if all the efforts done in the last decade have meant nothing, the CODESI was dissolved and the Inventory of Heritage Assets stops being considered. In this respect, in the same time, a new Code for Territories and Land Use (Bylaw nº. 10703/2010) allowed the development of new civil construction in the protected areas that allowed higher buildings in all the city. In this regard, it is important to point out that the city Code for Territories and Land Use was modified three times in 2010, 2011 and 2012 as a result of huge discussion regarding the subject.

In this respect, it is noteworthy that one more time, all the urban conservation initiatives emerge from NGOs, the Academic Institutions in the City and new non-governmental groups formed by neighbors reacting with spontaneous community manifestations against the destruction of building-heritage values. In this sense, the possibility of a World Heritage Nomination is still maintained by Foundation CEPA, different Academic Institutions in the city and some NGOs dealing with urban conservation in the city15.

Moreover, the prior Nomination attempts have pointed out the lack of policies and actions that merge urban planning and heritage conservation in the city as part of a sustainable urban development process.

In this regard, in April 2013 the city suffered the biggest tragedy in all its history: a flood affected the city and it left behind hundreds of deaths. This disaster represented the un-sustainable environment attitude of this time and, as well, a clear consequence of La Plata’s un-sustainable urban development and the lack of policies in the subject. This situation in the last years had opened in the community a debate about possible links between urban conservation, urban sustainable development and quality life.

Figure 57. La Plata's flooded periphery [Source: Diario La Nacion, 20 April 2013]

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

3.3. La Plata, Cultural Heritage policy frame until 2007.

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The policy context

The following graphic explained the relation between the Culture Heritage policy levels regarding Heritage Conservation in the city of La Plata. It relates the National, Provincial and Local levels with the International and Latin America levels. The analysis was done by the University of La Plata, in the context of the Study ‘Urban Heritage: from Sensitive Perception to Legal Protection’ between the years 1999-2000, to include its results as part of the first nomination attempt.

The original graphic goes until the year 2000.

However, the graphic on the rigth explains the result of this study conducted in 2000 and, as well, it includes the posterior policies gained after the prior nomination attempt between 1999 and 2007.

international

iberoamerica

national level

provintial level

local level

Figure 58. Own processing scheme until 2007, over University of La Plata Study ‘Urban Heritage: from Sensitive Perception to Legal Protection’. 1999-2000.

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

Notes 1. Argentina ratified as well other UN Charters like for example, the Charter against Illicit Trafficking of Cultural Property Properties, Charter for Education, Charter for Children Protection, etc.

2. Argentinian World Heritage Committee (CAPM) main functions are: "Inform and advise on the procedure established by the Practical Guidelines for the application of the sites to be included in the World Heritage List; Keep updated the National Tentative List of sites whose incorporation to the World Heritage List will be proposed in the coming years; Carry out the pertinent evaluations and procedures for the registration of sites in the National Tentative List and in the process of nomination to the World Heritage List; Monitor the periodic and extraordinary evaluations and reports requested by the World Heritage Committee on the state of conservation of the Argentine world heritage sites; Coordinate the technical evaluation visits and determine the technical assistance or financial contributions requested to the World Heritage Fund". Source: Website Ministerio de Cultura Argentina: https://www. cultura.gob.ar/institucional/organismos/museos/comision-nacional-de-museos-y-de-monumentos-y-lugares-historicos/ 3. The National Commission of Monuments, Places and Historical Goods’ main functions are: "Create the list of the National Historical Monuments, in their different categories, by means of the elaboration of a decree project to be signed by the National Executive authority; Exercise the superintendence over all declared assets, and must authorize the interventions proposed in them; Exercise custody and conservation of all declared assets, in concurrence with the respective local authorities, and those of national ownership that are more than 50 years old; Agree with the owners of the monuments the cooperative way of securing the patriotic purposes of the law; Keep a public record of declared assets; Provide technical assistance to national, provincial and municipal authorities and individuals regarding the best way of conservation and restoration of protected property; Advise the Congress of the Nation on the bills of declaration of national monuments". Source: Website Ministerio de Educacion Argentina: http://portales.educacion.gov.ar/ dnci/comision-nacional-para-la-unesco/patrimonio-mundial-capm/comite-argentino-del-patrimonio-mundial/ 4. Read Part I B, Chapther 2, of this thesis.

5. The prior Nomination attempt, was presented twice, even in this thesis is explained as a same process.

6. ‘The English architect Roy Worskett, a heritage specialist who will work with Post World War restorations was called to evaluate the deteriorations of the fire. When this architect saw the damage building, he exclaimed: “But where is the building that caught fire? The building is there! Look, this's very easy. What caught fire was the room, so what's there doing is a new room. That can even be used to make a modern room, with the technology of today, adapted to what are the current theatrical productions” (…)’.

Fragment in Leão Dornelles, L. d. (2017). PhD Thesis.

7. In 1983 the book "La Plata, cuidad nueva-ciudad antigua: historia, forma y estructura de un espacio urbano singular”, it is explained the progressive changes started in 1950’s that compromises the urban characteristics and the built heritage value of La Plata. “La urgencia y necesidad de esta tarea de esclarecimiento se fundamenta en que la naturaleza de las fuerzas que ocasionan

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el deterioro de la calidad ambiental platense es muy profunda y amplia. […] frente a un mercado inmobiliario totalmente dominado por la más cruda especulación.” (Morosi, 1983).

8. For example, due to the necessity of bigger spaces on the Municipal dependences, two new buildings were built, one in each side of communal palace. These buildings represented an intense debate among the most preservationist professionals in the city, but left in the city one of the best examples of urban conservation and contemporary architecture intervention in historical context.

9. ‘As a result of this study, the zoning of the urban area of La Plata was divided into Area A, Area B and Area C. Area A is the first consolidation zone of the urban fabric that "went through important processes of urban renewal with alteration of the original general morphological characteristics; Zone B was understood as a dispersed traditional fabric, "supplemented over time, particularly between the years of 1930 and 1950". This zone would expand to the southeast margin of the city, zone of the old Station of Railways Meridiano; Zone C would be located on the edges of the urban area, being composed of the areas that were consolidated later, between 1940 and 1970. Therefore, this area would be the one with the greatest dispersion of the fabric and with the presence of contemporary interventions, conforming a quite heterogeneous space’. Fragment of the study text.

10. The pedestrianization of the 51 Street between the Foundational Monumental Axis and Diagonal 74; the restoration of the Astronomical Orbserrvatory in the “Paseo del Bosque”, the cemenntery restoration and the put into value of the National Museum of Natural Sciences; the Lyceum Victor Mercante, etc.

11. Like the "First University Conferences on Heritage, Architectural, Artistic and Cultural", promoted in cooperation between the Università La Sapienza di Roma and the National University of La Plata and sponsored by UNESCO 12. Translation and briefing done by this thesis autor. Original text: “(…) La Plata es la única ciudad diseñada, de la etapa republicana independentista en América del Sur, que conserva prácticamente intacto su casco fundacional. Se trata, por lo tanto, de un testimonio vivo de la voluntad de libertad, progreso, racionalidad cartesiana y estética integral que signaron los altos ideales de esa época.

Su conservación en términos de evolución sostenible, museológica, permitirá no solamente preservar y mejorar la calidad de vida que ella brinda a sus 500.000 habitantes, sino también los valores de alta calidad urbanística y de preclaro ejemplo de la voluntad de progreso y de paz de una Nación y una época”.

13. 10 Journal of the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the National University of La Plata (FAU / UNLP).

14. These were: “Paseo del Bosque” park and University áreas; the Monumental Axis and Central Area; the School N.8 and its environment; the neighbourhoods Saavedra Square and Meridiano V. 15. NGOs involved: Civil Asociation Hoja de Tilo, Foundation Biosfera, Foundation Nuevo ambiente, Community group Salvemos La Plata, among others.

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Part II_ A

_4_ La Plata's ongoing World Heritage List project As it was explained in the previous chapter, since the late 1990’s in La Plata different professionals and institutions have been working to inscribe the city into the World Heritage List. In this respect, the prior Nomination attempts opened a discussion about urban conservation in the city that it has continued until nowadays.

Moreover, in the last decade as it was explained in the Part I of this thesis, the inclusion of the city of Rio de Janeiro as Cultural Landscape category, and the conceptual advances in the ‘2011 UNESCO Recommendation on Historic Urban Landscape’, have brought at international level new inputs regarding Urban Conservation discussion and about World Heritage in urban context. Those concepts have promoted new contributions into the local discussion regarding the heritage values of La Plata and, their impressions were reflected into a new initiative to promote the city inscription into the World Heritage List called "La Plata Cultural Landscape". Furthermore, because of this new scenario, the analysis of the heritage values of La Plata are conceived from a broader perspective beyond the mere analysis of the foundational plan.

4.1. “La Plata Cultural Landscape” “La Plata Cultural Landscape” is an initiative that goes through the project as an instrument to re-start the socialization of the Nomination project that aimed to include as many actors as possible and to involve the local community into the future nomination.

Because of the prior Nomination attempts in which ICOMOS rejected the site inscription, a new future Nomination needs to consider UNESCO suggestions. In this sense, the professionals working to promote the initiative have to carry back into the re-definition of the Outstanding Universal Value of the city of La Plata with a condition that goes beyond its foundational plan.

This situation brought a meaning of La Plata’s as World Heritage that it is represented by the cultural landscape reveals by the articulation of the Pampeana’s city model and La Plata’s character as Capital city. This situation is explained in the seminar "Repensar el Patrimonio, proyectar el Paisaje" hold in La Plata in 2016, where it was discussed the “interaction of the “urbs”, “polis” and “civitas” dimensions of La Plata’s cultural landscape which represent the attributes of the city”1.

In this sense, the Heritage values of La Plata are not reflected only by the Hygienist principles characterized by the urban interventions in the 19th Century, that in the foundational plan were represented by a tangible heritage system that characterized the “urbs” dimension of the city; or they are not reflected only by the Republican ideals materialized in the eclectic buildings for the new Capital City that are embodied in the “polis” dimension of the city. The heritage values of La Plata are represented as well by the expressions of the inhabitants of the City, the social and cultural values of the urban heritage of the city which are the result of a “civitas” centered into public spaces interaction. These expressions are part of the sense of place of La Plata and they enrich even more the tangible heritage represented by the ‘urbs’ and ‘polis’, with an immaterial dimension reflected by the ‘civitas’ and the urban heritage values of the city. In this sense, La Plata could be presented into UNESCO as Cultural Landscape that embodies multiple dimensions and relations, either tangible and intangible, materialized in La Plata as a special case into the Pampeana region foundational process and La Plata’s characterization as Capital city of the Province of Buenos Aires.

“La Plata Cultural Landscape” initiative and the recent past experiences regarding the new Code for Territories and Land Use and the tragic floods that affected the city in 2013, encouraged an “old but new discussion” and, in this opportunity different stakeholdes, the community of experts and the local communities were interest to give their point of view2. Because of this reason, under the coordination of Fundacion CEPA, during 2016 different conferences3 were held to inform the ideals of the initiative and, as well during December 2016, it was organized an international seminar of experts4 to prepare the file to be presented (again) into the National tentative list.

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4.2. Current stage of the Nomination Project. La Plata and Buenos Aires nomination "conjunta": “Buenos Aires-La Plata. Two Capitals: Culture of Modernity, Eclecticism and Migration”.

Taking in consideration that the process leads by the initiative “La Plata, Cultural Landscape” was held at the moment this thesis was been written and, the nomination file is not published yet, it is important to mention that La Plata as Cultural Landscape project has been modified since the Site promotion into the Argentina’s Tentative List inscription. In this sense, due to the increased visibility of La Plata’s proposal at National and International level, the ‘National Commission of Monuments, Places and Historical Goods’ and the Government of the City of Buenos Aires have proposed La Plata to reformulate the proposal to include the City of Buenos Aires in La Plata’s Nomination doing what they called a ‘Serial nomination’5.

Regarding this point it is important to mention that in 2006 the City of Buenos Aires had previously presented into Argentina National Tentative List a Nomination proposal that reflected the City of Buenos Aires as a Cultural Landscape too. However, this project was withdrew from the National Tentative List and it never started its way towards the Nomination file preparation. In that opportunity, the Capital city of Argentina promote a Nomination called “Buenos Aires Cultural Landscape: The river, the pampa, the historic barracks and immigration” 6.

In this new context, the Municipality of La Plata, the Government of the Province of Buenos Aires, the Government of the City of Buenos Aires have started working together into a new File for the ‘Set Nomination’. In this case, the Outstanding Universal Value must be re-defined because it implies a new analysis of the relations between both Capitals. In this case, the Outstanding Universal Value ‘would evoke the emerging process of modernization and immigration that resulted in an unprecedented cultural combination that was reflected by the cultural heritage built within the period 1880-1920 and the monumental scale of the eclectic buildings and sites in both capitals’7.

With this new perspective, the proposal fixed the period between 1880-1920 and it puts in value a ‘Heritage system’ of diverse scales within the cities of Buenos Aires and La Plata. This system is formed by traces, areas and monumental buildings. Each one of them reflects in an unique way the culture

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of eclecticism that dominated the period, belonging to the development of typological, esthetics, spatial configurations, architecture and urbanism in Argentina. Moreover, it expresses the processes of transculturation, adaptation and combination of cultures related to the immigration of that time.

This ‘Nominación conjunta’ project seeks to recall the importance of both cities materialization that was reflected in both cities political designation as Capitals. In this case, for example, the experience of La Plata’s foundational plan served as a laboratory for urban design, implementation and building solutions that had direct influence on the same type of actions posteriorly done in Buenos Aires.

From the other hand, for the purpose of this thesis, it must be clarified that the territorial planning process of the region Pampeana is not recognized in the Outstanding Universal Value of the ‘Set Nomination’; albeit not directly. This is because the new project assigned a period definition in the construction of the narratives of the Outstanding Universal Value that is defined “between 1880-1920”.

However, even if the heritage values of the territorial planning process of the region Pampeana are not recognized directly in the Outstanding Universal Value as it was recognized in the individual proposal of La Plata as Cultural Landscape; the strong relation with the territorial planning process of the region Pampeana and La Plata’s urban characteristics can be indirectly recognized by the new project, and perhaps mentioned in the dossier to be sent to UNESCO. This recognition is indirectly because La Plata’s urban characteristics would not have been possible without the territorial planning process that was done previously in the region Pampeana and with the co-relation of the process with the circumstances already mentioned in this thesis.

In this sense, a Nomination between Buenos Aires and La Plata has the opportunity to represent a more articulated heritage system, not only because of each Capital city contribution to each other, but as well for being an important part of the process that started in the second half of the XIX century as part of the same holistic project that built up Argentina as a Modern country.

Notes 1. Fragment of the thesis author personal record in the discussion held in the “Seminario Internacional: Repensar el Patrimonio.

Proyectar el Paisaje. Caso La Plata, Paisaje Cultural”. December 2016.

2. The relation between the actors involved in “La Plata Cultural Landscape” initiative would be analyzed deep in a posterior chapter of this thesis. However: the list of stakeholders promoting the initiative in the International Seminar was composed by: CIBA Real Estate Chamber of the Province of Buenos Aires (Cámara Inmobiliaria de la Provincia de Buenos Aires); National University of La Plata (Universidad Nacional de La Plata); Camara de Turismo region La Plata (Camara de Turismo); FELP Business Federation of La Plata (Federación Empresaria de La Plata); NGO S.O.S La Plata; CapbaUno -College of Architects of the Province of Buenos Aires, region 1 (Colegio de arquitectos de la Provincia de Buenos Aires); Argentine Catholic University (Universidad Catolica Argentina); Municipality of La Plata (Municipalidad de La Plata); Secretary of Tourism of La Plata (Secretaria de Turismo de La Plata); Strategic Plan LP 2030 (Plan Estrategico LP 2030); and, CEPA Foundation (Fundación CEPA).

3. Series of conferences of the different stakeholders and issues involved in “La Plata, Cultural Landscape” project: “La Plata y el Paisaje como oportunidad para la ciudad”; “El Rol de la Universidad en la Gestión del Paisaje Patrimonial” ; “El Rol de los Colegios Profesionales en la Gestión del Paisaje Patrimonial” ; “El aporte del Arte en la construcción del paisaje cultural intangible de la ciudad”; “La dimensión intangible del paisaje patrimonial” ; “El compromiso de las ONGs en la gestión del paisaje patrimonial” ; “La ciudad y el paisaje patrimonial. Experiencias”. These conferences were hold between August 2016 to November 2016.

4. Experts International seminar: “Seminario Internacional: Repensar el Patrimonio. Proyectar el Paisaje. Caso La Plata, Paisaje Cultural”. 12-14 December 2016, La Plata.

5. The translation for: ‘nominación conjunta’. This kind of nomination does not represent a different category. It just indicates that the nomination file, the property inscription and the management of the property will be shared by more than one jurisdiction.

Source: http://www.buenosaires.gob.ar/areas/cultura/paisaje/?menu_id=20277 6. The Outstanding Universal Value is not published yet. This phrase was used by the ‘Set Nomination’ presentation into the National Commission of Monuments, Places and Historical Goods on December 2017. Thesis Author translation.

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Part II_ A

_5_ October 2017, Stakeholders analysis

Figure 59. Actors relation in the context of the ongoing nomination of La Plata and the Buenos Aires by December 2017.

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October 2017, Stakeholders analysis

Figure 60 [LEFT and RIGTH]. La Plata participatory planing 2030 [Source: https://www.facebook.com/MunicipalidadDeLaPlata/

Figure 61 [LEFT and RIGTH]. Meridiano V, train workers in 1950 . Meridiano V Cultural Center, NGO members [Source: https://www.www.meridianocultural.com.ar/

Community-based processes and communities commitment regarding heritage in La Plata.

While the city of Buenos Aires has quite long tradition into community-based design and community commitment regarding heritage, the path for the city of La Plata have been more complicated due to the uncontinuity and lack of integration between a solid urban code and heritage policies.

However, in the last 15 years, in the city of La Plata differents NGOs have supported urban conservation in partnership with international NGOs (like World Heritage Funds, UNESCO and ICOMOS), public-private partnerships and sporadic municipal supports with programs like ‘participatory budget’ (Presupuesto Participativo) or community based design enterprises. In this case, the most remarkable example of this situation is the ‘Meridiano V’ neighborhood. This city area has developed a long tradition initiated in the 1980’s with the government-public-private partnerships that restored Meridiano V train station.

Moreover, in this neighborhood different community groups were created to give life again to different abandoned places after train service closed and railyards were dismantled in 1970s. This situation, represents an example about community commitment over heritage and identity in the city of La Plata that last until nowadays.

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Figure 62. The stakeholders chart above represents the relation between the social interests groups and the level of interest of each stakeholder involved in urban conservation discussion in the city of La Plata in the context of the ongoing 'Set-nomination' between La Plata and the city of Buenos Aires [Source: Own production].

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UNESCO-ICOMOS

GOVERMENT

LA PLATA CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

COMMUNITY

UNIVERSITIES

LA PLATA STRATEGIC PLAN 2030

REAL STATE GROUPS

NGOs

BUENOS AIRES URBAN REGENERATION

October 2017, Stakeholders analysis

UNESCO-ICOMOS

COMMUNITY

REAL STATE GROUPS

LA PLATA CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

LA PLATA STRATEGIC PLAN 2030

BUENOS AIRES URBAN REGENERATION

GOVERMENT

UNIVERSITIES

NGOs

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Part II_ B

Understanding grid values

Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

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The grid as a political instrument in the governing of the territories

Part II_ B Undoubtedly La Plata's grid urban layout is the most impressive characteristic that appears at a glance when someone knows for for the very first time La Plata’s foundational plan. A next chapter on this thesis would describe the characteristics of La Plata’s grid and La Plata's foundational plan. However, this chapter will focus into the conceptual relation between the processes of govern of the territory and the grid/plans behind it. In this regard, it will introduce the idea of how the relation of the ‘Polis’, ‘Civitas’ and ‘Urbs’ dimensions can explain this realtion.

_1_ The grid as a political instrument in the governing of the territories

Figure 63. From left to right: Reticle, orthogonal grid and grid. [Source: Terán, 1989, in Pesoa, 2012].

To define grid, it is taken as reference the description of Terán (1989): ‘when cities with geometric layout in which the streets of straight sections crosses to each other, they form a reticle.

When the streets intersect at angles straight, it is an orthogonal grid, and instead, when the distances between the crosses are always the same, it is grid1’ (Terán, 1989 in Pesoa, 2012).

However, the grid in itself does not bring any linking to the govern of the territory, a single grid does not allow to establish civilization. While the strategies behind a political plan that use a grid as an instrument in the govern of the territory, can do it. A single grid just implied a geometric division of the land.

Mazza L. (2015) wrote in this book Spazio e Cittadinanza about ‘the relationship between the political action of “build” and the technical action of “divide” to build up the territory’2, in this sense, an orthogonal division system, and more specifically a ‘grid’ have represented historically an inseparable link between the territorial planning and the politic decisions. In this respect, ‘urban planning as a technique and, the government of the territory as a government practice arise from the political necessity to generate a social and territorial order that can transferred and satisfied the physical order of the space 3(Mazza, 2015).

Figure 64. Mileto's plan. [Source: Google images]

For example, Hippodamus of Miletus presented the Hippodamian4 grid as ‘the idea to create an urban space that reflects its political decisions’. In this regard, the antique city of Mileto is composed by a homogeneous grid for different social classes with different uses of the land (sacra, communal,

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private). This is as well, the first a functional use of the grid for the purposes of further objectives and to have control on the territorial domain of the grid. In this sense, Hippodamus’s grid represents a ‘technical form that is open to different territorial strategies of different political, esthetic, economic or moral objectives’ (Mazza, 2015). In this sense, the concept of grid domain as we know today is the result of centuries of evolution of the urban form analysis (Galatay, 1977). ‘I tend to believe that the reticular system was able to be discovered spontaneously by any civilization that would have come to certain evolutionary maturity. Certain agricultural systems (irrigation, land recovery) are almost inevitably linked to the use of an efficient grid system. All countries that used methods of large-scale irrigation seem to have discovered that: Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, Egypt, China and the coastal area of Alto Peru’5(Galantay, 1975 in Pesoa 2012).

For these reasons, the use of grid is presented in the most different varied cases, culturally and in history.

Only focussing in the Occidental Societies, for example, like in the societies previously mentioned, in the ancient Mileto, in Timgad, passing by the medieval bastides in France, to the American colonization (both in North and South America), the interventions of the illustration period in Europe, or (as it is referred in this thesis) in the new founding cities in the province of Buenos Aires during the 19th century’ (Pesoa, 2012).

Figure 65. Pampeana's cities cronological foundation [Source: Pesoa, 2012, page 56]

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The grid as a political instrument in the governing of the territories

1.1 The Grid and the Plan.

As it was explained before, a grid is a tool that is opened to technical, physical and politically purposes.

However, it should not be misunderstood with the Plan. In this sense, the grid is just a component of the plan. Even if the grid is the main component for the land division and the strongest characteristic of the Plan, the grid is established to produce a territorial order, because of the plan political choices for social control and territorial control.

In this sense, as Mazza (2015) explains, ‘the govern of the urban form depends in the convergence capacity of the politic objectives of the Plan and the capacity of the symbolic representation’ of the tangible expressions of the urban features, like the grid, or the buildings over the grid or the solid and void relation between the spaces, among others urban characteristics. In this regard, it can be said that the govern of the territory has a “grammar” but not a logic; because its “logic” is given by the political decisions.

In this sense, Part II-B, analyzed different Case Studies that represent different relations between the grid/plan and, the politics and social relations behind each case chosen. These case studies are: The Spanish colonial grid; the North America' foundational grids; Manhattan's grid and Cerda Eixample of Barcelona.

Notes 1. Thesis author translation. Original fragment in Pesoa (2012): “(…) en ciudades de trazado geométrico en el que las calles de tramos rectos se cruzan entre sí, forman una retícula. Cuando las calles se cruzan formando ángulos rectos, se trata de una retícula ortogonal, y en cambio, cuando las distancias entre los cruces son siempre iguales, puede hablarse de cuadrícula” (Terán, 1989).

2. Original text in Italian in Mazza L. (2015:12).

3. Original text in Italian in Mazza L. (2015:9) 4. Hippodamus of Miletus (498-408 BC), was an ancient Greek architect, urban planner, physician, mathematician, meteorologist and philosopher, who theorized the human habitat and formulated a conformation of reticulated urban life, which referred to a rationalization of spatial planning considered as the "Hippodamian grid”.

5. Thesis author translation. Original fragment in Pesoa (2012): “Me inclino a creer que el sistema reticular pudo descubrirlo espontáneamente cualquier civilización que hubiera llegado a cierta madurez evolutiva. Determinados sistemas agrícolas (irrigación, recuperación de terrenos) llevan casi inevitablemente al uso del eficiente sistema en cuadrícula. Todos los países que utilizaron métodos de irrigación a gran escala parecen haberlo descubierto: Mesopotamia, el Valle del Indo, Egipto, China y la zona costera del Alto Perú”.

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'Polis, Civitas and Urbs' relation

Part II_ B

_2_ 'Polis, Civitas and Urbs' relation

To explain briefly how “Polis”, “Civitas” and “Urbs” are understood for the purpose of this thesis, it can be said that their definition come from an etymological understanding of the word ‘city’ that comes from the Latin term “civitas”. However, City has many interrelated dimensions that define it and, to understand these dimensions interrelation, it is necessary to think into the etymological definition of other two words: “Urban” and “politic”.

In this sense, a ‘City’ is the built space and, its morphological characteristics that can be easily recognize as “urban features” (buildings, streets, infrastructures, etc); it is everything that the Romans designated with the expression ‘urbs’. But the city is built also by a social reality established by the citizens who live in the city, to which the Romans named ‘civitas’. Finally, a city is also the political-administrative unit, its management and its legal implications; to which the Greeks referred as ‘polis’. Because of these interrelations, referring to a city means the physical, social and political-administrative dimensions that composed it. Regarding this idea, Horacio Capel (2002) explained that the "Urbs dimension refers to the tangible dimension of the habitat (built and natural) that shape the city and the territory. The Civitas dimension is the root of civilization and it refers to the society that gives rise to the Urbs and it is expressed through its culture, its values, its social and economic organization. The Polis dimension refers to the management and administrative dimension of the city and territory".

In this sense, any city with any urban morphology can be analyzed within their ‘polis, civitas and urbs dimensions’.

These three dimensions give form to the ‘triangle of the social habitat’ (Ilustration in De Manuel Jerez, E., 2003). These dimentions relate to each other in an interrelated and recursive way in which any transformation in one of them is cause of transformations in the others.

In Figure 66 is represented the triangle of the social habitat.

URBS

CIVITAS

POLIS

Figure 66. The triangle of "social habitat" [Source: De Manuel Jerez, E., 2003]

Focussing on La Plata's case, the interrelation of the ‘Polis’, ‘Civitas’ and ‘Urbs’ dimensions can be a way to undestand, the relation between the processes of govern of the territory and the plan (or lack of them) behind it, in each moment of La Plata's history, because as Mazza (2015) wrote: ‘morphology and urban features are functional to the policy strategies that determine them; the source of the norms is therefore political, and politicians are the effect of citizenship that derive from the application of the law, because of this situation norms that order the urban space specify the ways in which populations inhabit space1’.

Figure 67. A graphic illustration of the "Urbs, Polis and Civitas" interrelation. [Source: Own processing] Notes 1. Original text in Italian in Mazza L. (2015:18).

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a. The Spanish Colonial grid

The Spanish colonial period went through different stages according to the regions of America that were conquered. Thus, from the California to the Río de la Plata, the foundations of settlements were result of an accelerated foundational process of vast scope led by the interest of conquerors and colonizers.

In urban matters, Spain gave instructions about the foundation of settlements in America. The “Ordinances of Discovery and Population” of 1573 are partly based on those first instructions. These regulations would constitute later the several written laws in the Compilation of Laws of the Kingdoms of the Indies, published in 1681. However, the instructions were almost always vague and based on the experiences of the discoverers and conquerors that the directives were so general and obvious that they were already been considered without the need for Royal orders. In this sense, the regulations did not led the process, they went along with it.

In some of the initial instructions, as later in the Ordinances and in the Laws of the Indies (Leyes de Indias), they settled the criteria for choose the site, how to divide the land and, how to trace the layout of the city. The most important aspects, in relation to the morphology of the city are related to the layout of the city: the width of the streets, the size and location of the main square and the smaller squares, the location of the main buildings such as the Main Church, the Viceroyalty House, the Customs house, etc., even the location of the butchers, fishmongers and other similar buildings.

In this regard, the urban models adopted by the Spaniards in America at the beginning of the XVI century remained almost immutable throughout three centuries, and according to Hardoy (1975) it can be recognized a gradual imposition of the grid as a tool for colonization. In this sense, he classified the Spanish Colonial cities in ‘Classic model’ -as the most applied-, the regular model, the irregular, the linear and other particular cases. All these models were guided by the aim of the Spaniards in solving multiple problems like shaping urban settlements and simultaneously determine the most equitable subdivision of the urban lots to prevent conflicts among founders or to anticipate the needs of future settlers.

However, in regard of the urban morphology of the city, the imposition of the grid did not encourage variations into the urban form, and the “theoretical model” defined by the legislation laws was a complement to the practice. In this sense, the model was never executed strictly and entirety, because either the law came when most of the foundational settlements were already under construction or because, certain urban forms were established in relation to the geographical characteristics of the area.

Figure 68 [From left to right]. Cartagena de Indias (Founded at 1533) Plan from 1721, trascribed from Juan Herrera and Sotomayor plan; Quito (Founded at 1534) plan plan from 1734, transcribed from Alsedo de Herrera map; Trujillo (founded at 1534) transcribed from Joseph Fomento's plan from 1687; Buenos Aires (founded at 1580), 1760 anonimous plan transcribed.

[Source: Ciudades de America, planos manuscritos de Archivos Españoles. INAP (National Institute of Public Administration) Spain].

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Case Studies_Part II

b. North America's foundational grids

1

3 2

1. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

2. Savannah, Georgia.

3. Denver, Colorado.

Figures 69, 70 and 71 [From up to bottom]. Philadelphia and Savannah [Source: <thegreatestgrid.mcny.org].

Denver [Source: denver.org]

While the California and Santa Fe territories, in the south-west used to be conquered by the Spaniards. The first English and French colonies were settled in the east coast of the United States.

As Willian Reps explained in his book ‘The Making of Urban America: A History of City Planning in the United States’ the England and French conquerors did not bring any guidelines of how to stablish colonies in the New World, while the Spaniards had the “Leyes de Indias”. However, the grid was a tool extensively used to guide cities foundation. but the American tradition of settling new cities is based on the pragmatism of refusing any civil or trade center and, the setting it just concentrates to an even division system of the land.

In 1681 it was founded the city of Philadelphia, the first designed city to use a grid in North America (without considering the Spanish foundational cities). In this case the city presented a reticular pattern with blocks from different sizes. The design was limited in two sides by two rivers and, in the other by streets. On the contrary to the Hispanic model that was able to grow without limits. However, like the in the Spanish model, in the center of the city, two crossing avenues enclosed a main square and there were also 4 other secondary squares; one for each quadrant.

The city of Savannah was founded in 1733 by the English general and philanthropist J. Oglethorpe.

In this case the grid order is used for an equitable distribution. However, the grid is traced by cells/ units or districts of 40 plots each surrounding to a public square. This model, as in the Spanish model, it was also established three kinds uses for the soil: urban, orchards and farmland.

Savannah’s grid is a paradigmatic case among the North American cities.

Moreover, after United States independence in 1776, there were many cases of grid/reticular foundational cities like Columbus (1813), Chicago (1837), among others. However, even if there were many cities founded in the wake of the advances on the lands of the West, it was not followed any model for the cities foundation, and the grid composition was just limited to divide the land, as in Denver (1858).

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c. Manhattan’s grid.

As it was explained before, there are many cities in the United States with grid layout. However, none of them is so striking as Manhattan’s grid.

In 1811, it was developed the New York Commissioner’s Plan which made available all the urban land of the Manhattan with a uniform grid of rectangular blocks of 60 x 120 m. The grid laid out 155 east-west streets and 12 northsouth avenues. It stopped at 155th Street due to challenging ground conditions further north and since at the time there was no need for further development (Ballon, 2012). In this sense, Manhattan’s grid represents how the grid can be extended without limits, without defined uses or buildings, and almost without public spaces.

Manhattan’s 1811 plan was the mere concept of the grid as a consolidating frame. For example, the plan included only a few public spaces, a military parade ground, an observatory place, a market place, and several squares that were never built.

However, what makes special Manhattan’s grid, that makes the difference with any other North American grid, is the Central Park; a Park that was not part of the plan and that it was devised in the 1850s as a response to critics of the grid. In this sense, during the 1950’s private developers realized that squares and parks would benefit property values. Subsequently, private-public partnerships have become a longstanding tradition in the city with many privately owned public spaces (the most renowned public spaces, Gramercy Park and Madison Square, for example, were inserted because of public-private partnership).

In this regard, defining Manhattan’s grid is far more complex than an imposed grid and the idea of form following function. Instead it may be defined ‘in the power of particular people to orchestrate an outcome that suited their personal interests’ (Ballon, 2012), either by an imposing a grid or by enlightening the creation and manipulation of the real estate market and, the corresponding rise of symbiotic political power to enact this transformation.

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Figure 72. New York grid 1813 [Source: <http:// thegreatestgrid.mcny.org]

Case Studies_Part II

d. Cerda Eixample of Barcelona.

Figure 73. Barcelona's plan [Source: Internet-Unknown]

In the begging of the XIX Century the medieval city of Barcelona living conditions were deplorable and the highly congested city sectors created strong social pressure for the demolition of the walls around the old town. They finally were destroyed between the years 1854 and 1856 when the communal government of Barcelona started a project for a city extension called (in Catalan) Eixample.

In that time, Ildefons Cerdà explained his principles that associated the “autonomy rights of men with the different scales of the city, liking the individual, the neighborhood, the city, the region”, connecting then with the means of transportation (the pedestrians, the cars, the railway). His proposal for the Eixample of Barcelona was ideologically formulated following these aspects and, it was officially developed in 1860 (General Theory of the Urbanization, 1859 in Metropolis N.76, 2009).

In contrast to the old city, Idelfons Cerdà proposed an Eixample that greatly enlarged the city’s layout: Cerda’s plan consisted of a square grid 133.3m x 133.3m with 20m wide streets, 5m for each side pedestrian and 10m for central vehicular traffic road. Upon this grid, tilted at 45° to the meridian to obtain the maximum sunlight, he superimposed a series of wider access routes that would link the city with its territorial environs.

However, Cerda’s plan is more pragmatic, both in its geometry and in its sociological awareness of urban necessities. “(…) urban life is composed of two main elements that encompass all the functions and all the acts of life. The man in itself and the man movements: that is everything. There is nothing more than stay and movement. And those two elements have in the city, as they could not help but have, their two-corresponding means or instruments to define them. All acts are verified in the finite capacities materially or virtually of the building occupation, and all acts concerning locomotion are carried out in the indefinite spaces called vias” (Thesis author translation, from Cerda, 1859). There’s no proper translation for the Spanish word ‘vias’ that would match with Cerda’s relation “vias-intervias”.

In this sense, the Cerda Eixample of Barcelona represented an integral urban solution to his ideas expressed by his theoretical work which, Cerda himself has defined as Urban Sciences.

To conclude, it should be recall, that analyzing the evolution of the three proposals that Cerda presented for the Eixample it can be analyzed the importance of the new mains of transportation with the incorporation of the railway network into the Eixample’s layout. In this sense, it can be said that Cerda Eixample of Barcelona represented as well, the first case of what is known today as network planning.

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Part II_ C

Towards the understanding of La Plata's Historic Urban Landscape...

Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

Part II_ C

_1_ La Plata' and the Pampeana's Cities

1.1 Region Pampeana: Topography and hydrography

Parana region Yungas region

Chaquena region Espinal region Pampeana region Montes region Pre-puna region

Pampeana region

Alto-andino region Puna region Patagonia region Sub-atlantica region Insular region

Antartic region

Figure 74 (ABOVE- LEFT). Argentina's geographical regions [Source: Own processing over Santillana Editions, 1999] Figure 75 (ABOVE- RIGHT). Argentina's provinces division [Source: Own processing over Santillana Editions, 1999]

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Province of Buenos Aires

La Plata and the Pampeana's cities

The Pampa is a huge herbaceous plain that occupies approximately one fifth of the Argentine Republic (about 500,000 km2) and also extends to Uruguay and southern Brazil. The landscape is generally plan, but it is a terraced relief from west to east, and in the vicinity of the great rivers it becomes slightly as a beam of open valleys levelled into the Pampa’s plain. However, the landscape in the region is characterized for being very plain (the almost 800 km that separate the cities of Córdoba and Buenos Aires are a plain so flat that the horizon appears as an almost perfect line). The regular, slightly undulating plain is interrupted only by the mountain systems of Tandilia (higher altitude 524 m) and Ventania (higher height 1239 m).

There are few regular and important rivers. Among them, the most important is the Río Salado, whose basin dominates the central region known as depressed pampas. Like all plain rivers in general, the streams and rivers of the Pampean region form variable and divergent channels, often swampy.

The plain itself has sea level ranges between 100 and 150 m and it is located in the extreme northeast of the Province of Buenos Aires. It is interrupted by some minor dunes, fixed by vegetation, as a consequence of wind erosion triggered by man and his poor management of soil. Small lagoons occupy areas where the land has depressions. These structural characteristics, together with the climate slightly more humid than in the rest of the province, give rise to its best soils: deep and well drained, with organic material content and humidity. The soils are deep and very rich in organic materials and because of this reasaon, are favorable for agriculture activities.

The Pampeana region temperate has an average annual temperature of 17ºC. As for the rains, it changes accordingly the difference between the ‘Pampa Humeda’ (Humid Pampa) and ‘Pampa Seca’ (Dry Pampa). The humid pampa is the region of the coast, in which the rains are favored by the Atlantic winds with a rain average of 1000mm per year. In the dry pampas, to the west, it only rains an average of 400mm per year.

Figure 76. Pampeama region landscape [Source: Internet photo- Unknown]

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1.2 The Pampeana city "model" and the cities foundational process between 1810 and 1910.

In 1821 it was created the “Topographic department of the Province of Buenos Aires” which established the guidelines for planning, setting and building cities in the region “Pampeana”. In this sense, this Department oversaw the plan of every city and the territory around it reserved for agriculture (Pesoa, 2012). During the first years, the towns recreated the Spanish model of an urban and agricultural units.

However, the main number of cities were founded from 1852 and, from that moment on it is possible to recognize a model of city that can be defined as “Pampeana”.

This model, can be recognized as a tranculturization of the Spanish Indean Model, with the emergent work of the Topographic Department, later called Engeenier Department. The result of the local efforts and the condition of the Pampas resulted into a model of city that can not be studied as single city development. In this respect, the territorial planning process of the Pampeana region allowed the foundation of hundreds of cities, that followed a ‘Modelo de ciudad Pampeana’ (Pampeana city model) building up a city-network that would reinforced the construction of Argentina as a Modern State.

Different typologies:

BASIC LAYOUT FROM 'MODELO DE INDIAS'

CENTRAL TYPOLOGY

CROSSED BY TRAIN TYPOLOGY

COAST/RIVER TYPOLOGY

EXPERIMENTAL or INNOVATIVE TYPOLOGY

Gral Lavalle ‘coast’ model

Campana ‘coast’ +‘innovative’ model

For example:

Las Flores ‘central’ model

Chivilcoy ‘central’ model

Coronel Suarez ‘irregular’ model

Figure 77 (ABOVE). Pampeana's cities typologies figures [Source: Own processing over schemes in Pesoa, 2012] Figure 78 (BELOW). Pampeana's cities google earth photos.

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La Plata and the Pampeana's cities

Pampeana' cities network in the Province of Buenos Aires

PORTS

+2000000 HABS.

NATIONAL ROAD PROVINTIAL ROAD

CORDOBA PROVINCE

500000 HABS.

COUNTIES BORDERS

150000 HABS.

PASSENGER TRAINS

50000 HABS.

CARGO TRAINS

20000 HABS.

STA. FE PROVINCE

ENTRE RIOS PROVINCE

REPUBLIC OF URUGUAY

LA PLATA RIVER

LA PAMPA PROVINCE

RIO NEGRO PROVINCE

Figure 79. Province of Buenos Aires analysis [Source: Own processing ]

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Cities founded in the Province of Buenos Aires between 1810 - 1910.

1860

1870

Figure 80. Pampeana's cities cronological foundation [Source: Pesoa, 2012, page 56]

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1880

1890

1900

La Plata and the Pampeana's cities

1910

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

1.3 Mobility and infrastructure

Figures 81. Train development in Argentina from 1866 to 1914 [Source: amigosdeltren.blogspot.com.ar]

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La Plata and the Pampeana's cities

The train.

The train was vital for the consolidation of the State and for the economic model established; as well as an effective communication network that was extremely necessary for Argentinian distances. Most of the railroad were built between 1870 and 1914. In the case of the Pampas region, the role assumed by the train development transformed the landscape, since it developed and settled the territory, by establishing the foundation of towns and cities around the stations.

Since 1970's with a change into the transports policies in Argentina and the lack of private investment into the train transportation, only 40 % of the lines are used for freight transportation.

On Figure 79, the yellow lines represented the dismantled train lines.

That represents not only an economic change into the development of the region and the means of transportation in the country, but as well, it represents a social change for the hundreds on towns and cities connected by the train. The dynamics into these places have changed so fast turning the situation unsustainable for their inhabitants forcing them to emigrate to big cities.

Image 82 [Source: estkm29.blogspot]

Figures 83. Train Station in the Province of Buenos Aires year 1903 [Source: Unknown]

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La Plata's port.

'Puerto La Plata' is located on the south margin of La Plata river, at an estuary, 10 km from the city of La Plata and 60 km (by land) and 37 km (by sea)from the City of Buenos Aires. La Plata's port was the first planned port of Argentina. The location was chosen because the area called 'Ensenada' has natural conditions as port. Because of this reason, Ensenada used to be the 'Port of Ensenada' until 1883 when it was chossen the area for the constuction of La Plata's new capital port.

Figures 84 (ABOVE) and figure 85 (BELOW). Amour slaughterhouse and La Plata's port aerial view by 1923. [Source: www.histarmar. com.ar/Puertos/LaPlata-Ensenada].

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La Plata and the Pampeana's cities

La Plata's port history.

From 1883- 1890 it was the construction and its inauguration.From 1890-1904, it was the period from the inauguration of the port to its transfer to the national jurisdiction. This period is marked but by the conflicts of interest between Buenos Aires Port and the Provintial one.

In this sense, the City of Buenos Aires started the construction of "Puerto Madero" in 1887. The South dock was inaugurated in 1889 and it was completed in 1898. About ten years after completion, Puerto Madero had already been totally obsolete, due to the increasing size of the ships.

The government had to face the construction of a new port, and this time a series of open docks in the form of a comb were done in what it was called, the New Port, which opened in 1919 and is still active today.

Meanwhile, in La Plata's port situation between, 1904-1925 was finally comprises from the transfer of the port to the national jurisdiction. In this regard, La Plata 's port ratified the function that the Buenos Aires ruling class intended: to be a complementary port for Buenos Aires's one.

This period represented a period of slow decay due to the continuous competition it first endured with Puerto Madero, and then with the New Port (both in Buenos Aires), something that was accentuated from 1910, in which it already presented a state of abandonment.

Since 1925 it was decided to give industrial uses to La Plata's port. It was established YPF (Yacimientos Pretoliferos Federales) in the area, the biggest petrol distillery of Argentina. Moreover, different industries like slaughterhouses (Image X) were located in the right side of La Plata’s port in the Commune of Berisso, and a military base was build in one area of the port. Furthermore, since 1950s it was stablished a shipyards industry called ‘Rio Santiago’. Because of these new uses of the port, La Plata’s port has not being use for exportation purpose (either secondary transactions) since 1920s.

Since 1957, La Plata’s port jurisdiction had been modified, being divided in two different Municipality Governments: Ensenada, and Berisso. Since then, “Puerto La Plata” is only a name, a memory, because legally it does not belong to the Provincial Government or to La Plata’s jurisdiction.

Ensenada Commune

Berisso Commune

Figures 86, 87 and 88 (From above to bellow). La Plata's port [Source: www.histarmar.com.ar/Puertos/LaPlata-Ensenada]

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Part II_ C

_2_ La Plata' and the City of Buenos Aires

"La Boca", old harbor neighbour

Diagonal Norte

'Plaza de Mayo' & 'Casa Rosada'

Figures 89. The city of Buenos Aires and the City of La Plata scheme. [Source: Own processing] Figure 90. Collage of the city of Buenos Aires and the City of La Plata tangible heritage values [Source: Own processing]

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Buenos Aires's City

Distance between the Capitals: 50 km

La Plata and the City of Buenos Aires

La Plata's city

Both capitals role in the process of National organization as a modern state (as reflected at October 2017 in La Plata and Buenos Aires Argentina 's World Heritage Tentative list project)

La Plata’s city as Province of Buenos Aires's Capital

Buenos Aires’s city as National Capital

Heritage Values between both Capitals' cities

Tangible Eclectic architecure and urban interventions

La Plata's Senators House

La Plata's Municipal Goverment building

Buenos Aires's city progressive urban interventions

Intangible Inmigration and transculturalization

La Plata’s foundational center as an ex-novo city

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2.1 The City of Buenos Aires and its conurbanization relationship with La Plata.

Metropolitan sprawl through the years 1810-1880 1880-1930 1930-1960 1960-1980 1980-1995 1995-2010

Pereyra Iraola Park

Population and current polital division Buenos Aires's city

2891082 inhabitants

Buenos Aires's city 1st and 2nd ring

Buenos Aires's city conurbanization

3rd ring

1st ring

8,5 counties

5045783 inhabitants

2nd ring

16,5 counties

4864499 inhabitants

3rd ring

6 counties

2134038 inhabitants 844039 inhabitants

La Plata's conurbanization

La Plata Berisso Ensenada

774369 inhabitants 14021 inhabitants 55659 inhabitants

Metropolitan connections

Buenos Aires's city' border 1st and 2nd ring' border Conurbanization border Road 6 extension

Figures 91. City spread diagram [Source: Own processing over internet images] Figures 92. Population diagram. [Source: Own processing over internet images] Figure 93. Metropolitan area, roads analysis [Source: Own processing]

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La Plata, Berisso and Ensenada

La Plata and the City of Buenos Aires

1980

more contrast

1995

more traffic

2010

more contamination

more climate change Figure 94 [CENTER]. Google earth aerial photos. [Source: Google earth. Historical regiter] Figure 95, 96, 97, 98. Illustrative internet pictures (from above to bellow). Gated communities and slums. Metropolitan road at peak hour. "Riachuelo" stream. La Plata's flodings at April 2013.

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Buenos Aires's City con-urbanization and the City of La Plata' metropoliatan area

0 1

10

20km

Figure 99. Buenos Aires metropolitan area analysis [Source: Own processing]

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ROADS PEREYRA IRAOLA PARK

IN USE RAILWAYS ABANDONED RAILWAYS

Buenos Air

res's City

Distance between the Capitals: 50 km

La Plata and the City of Buenos Aires

La Plata's city

La Plata, Berisso and Ensenada

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

_3_ La Plata and its 'Heritage systems' 3.1 La Plata’s foundational plan LA PLATA RIVER

LA PLATA RIVER’S COVE

La Plata’s Port

La Plata’s foundational plan (1882) LA PLATA’ S TRAIN CONNECTION

Foundational Center

‘TIERRAS DE PAN LLEVAR’ 1 (1st ‘Daily product production’ lands)

Train Barracks

Orchards

‘TIERRAS DE PAN LLEVAR’ 2 (1st ‘Daily product production’ lands)

Figure 100 (LEFT). La Plata foundational plan [Source: Leão Dornelles, 2017] Figure 101 (RIGHT). La Plata own processing image, over foundational plan original map at Leão Dornelles, 2017

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La Plata and its 'Heritage systems'

Part II_ C

Foundational Center Foundational axis

Monumental buildings Govermental public buildings, surrounded by green open space

Other public buildings

Isolated public buildings, surrounded by green open space

Residential blocks Compact residential blocks

Diagonals Main two diagonals: - North to south - East to west Mid-points diagonals (connecting parks)

Parks and public squares System of public space each 6 block distance

Green corridors Different urban groves according the streets, avenues or diagonals

Green perimeter

Foundational center border

Urban trams system

Grid 122 St 1St 72St

32St

31 St

Area 25 km2 Figure 102. La Plata's heritage systems layers [Source: Own processing]

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

3.2 La Plata’s heritage systems (in the foundational center) GRID

'Bosque' park RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS

La Plata's residential profile

Residential buildings border.

Figures (in page 152, 153, 154 & 155). La Plata's heritage systems [Source: Own diagrams with unknown source photos]

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La Plata and its 'Heritage systems'

MONUMENTAL AXIS

MONUMENTAL PUBLIC BUILDINGS & other PUBLIC BUILDINGS

Monumental Public Buildings Other Public Buildings (outside Monumental Axis) Monumental Public Buildings: Example, Cathedral & Municipality

Monumental Axis Govermental Buildings

Public Buildings outside Monumental axils: Example, Ministery of Education

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

GREEN SQUARES AND URBAN PARKS

'El Bosque' park TRAM

Abandoned tram railyards DIAGONALS SYSTEMS

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La Plata and its 'Heritage systems'

Monumental Axis PERIMITER

'Circunvalacion' perimiter park GREEEN CORRIDORS

BOULEVARDS

Figures (in page 152, 153, 154 & 155). La Plata's heritage systems [Source: Own diagrams with unknown source photos]

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

3.3 The 'Genius loci' of La Plata and the Intangible dimension of heritage

The ‘Genius Loci’ of La Plata is inherent centered on public spaces interaction. The heritage system had configurate through the years a system of public spaces, composed by the squares and park located once six blocks in every direction. Moreover, the systems of avenues and diagonals with their urban groves have constituted a distinctive urban environment for development of the city life. The leafy trees change color and perception in every season and gives a distinctive image to different areas of the city. In

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La Plata and its 'Heritage systems'

this regard, these characteristics are perceived while you walk through La Plata's layout, either by the perception of the layout in itself or by the configuration of the public spaces systems, as a remarkable example of a city layout that was conceived to be hygienist and modern. In that aspect the goal of the foundational plan was reached indeed, and the layered of urban life have added to the plan a sense of place that builds up La Plata’s urban landscape.

Photos source: www.facebook.com/laciudaddelaplatamegusta/ & https://www.facebook.com/MunicipalidadDeLaPlata/ ]

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Figure 103. La Plata 47 St. and & Avenue. Collage made by Hernán G. Rojas [Source: Diario Clarin]

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La Plata and its 'Heritage systems'

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

3.4 Mapping La Plata's city current urban landscape

160

0 0.5

2

La Plata and its 'Heritage systems'

4km

Figure 104. The city of La Plata and its metropolitan area analysis [Source: Own processing]

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

La Plata & the River of La Plata

1

2

5

6

9

10

La Plata & its foundational center

La Plata & its periphery

Figures (in page 162 &, 163). Internet illustrative images [Source: Own diagrams with unknown source photos]

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La Plata and its 'Heritage systems'

1 3 2 4

3

4

La Plata, Berisso and Ensenada & the River of La Plata

7 8 5&6

7

8

La Plata & its foundational center 12 10 11

9

11

12

The city of La Plata & its periphery

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

"Polis, Civitas and Urbs interrelation"

LA PLATA'S HISTORY

ARGENTINA'S HISTORY

A briefing: La Plata' 135 years of 'Polis, Civitas & Urbs interrelation'

Figure 105. The city of La Plata timeline analysis.

The "polis, civis and urbs interrelation" [Source: Own processing]

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La Plata' 135 years of 'Polis, Civitas & Urbs interrelation'

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Conclusion Part II

Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

La Plata: Reality, opportunities and challenges.

A broader study of La Plata’s foundational plan and its evolution over 135 years of the city’s history, brings to light that a multidisciplinary analysis contributes new inputs to explore the city that go beyond the foundational plan characteristics. In this sense, La Plata can be recognized as an outstanding example of the process of urbanization that emerged after the independence of the Spanish Colonies in South America in the 19th Century.

This recognition is based on their already analyzed main characteristics: its foundational plan, its capital condition, the hygienist urban layout composed of a grid crossed by diagonals, the system of public squares, the urban groves characterization, the monumental scale of its public buildings, and the eclectic style of the buildings, among other features. However, La Plata is more than the urban features of its foundational plan. In this sense, La Plata’s urban heritage values are part of a ‘heritage system’ that goes beyond its foundation plan to constitute a system inside systems. As it was explained in this thesis, La Plata was founded as the Capital City of the Province of Buenos Aires when the City of Buenos Aires become the Capital of the Nation. However, La Plata’s foundation is a special case in a network of cities planned and built in the vast landscape of the Pampeana region (Pesoa, 2012). All these relations are represented in the territorial planning done in the region for the holistic project made by Argentina in the 19th Century to become a modern country, and this currently constitute layers into the study of the historic urban landscape of the city. In this sense, a deep understanding of the process that led to La Plata’s foundation is as important as understanding the evolution of the city as it exists today.

Figure 106. La Plata in 1932 & La Plata 2010. [Source: Unknown internet photos]

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Urbs

Civitas

Polis

Figure 107. 2017 La Plata's ''Polis, Civitas and Urbs'' interrelation scheme [Source: Own processing]

While the value of the foundational plan is undeniable, the definition of the urban heritage values of the city goes beyond the original project features, and its characterization surpasses the loss of foundational ‘private-buildings’ or the partial loss of the monumental axis effect defined in the 19th Century. Because of this reading, the urban heritage values of La Plata represent an outstanding case to analyze Argentinian dynamics in the 19th Century foundational process, as much as it represents the way that that those urban heritage values have adapted over more than one hundred years of history.

Furthermore, for the purpose of this thesis, it is important to recall the importance that the processes of the UNESCO World Heritage List Nomination has signified for the discussion of La Plata’s heritage values. Even though this thesis was not originally set to analyze the work done for the prior attempst, nor the work done for the ongoing nomination project, some considerations can be concluded both for the past attempts and for the current Nomination project. In this sense, based on the ‘polis’, ‘civitas’ and ‘urbs’ dimensions as interrelated themes of analysis for the dynamics of a city, the importance of the policies (or lack of them) and the citizens’ attitude towards the definition or conservation of the urban heritage values of a city should be recalled.

As such, it is important to highlight that the Policy frame gained for the protection of the heritage values of the city was only a consequence of the first World Heritage List nomination attempt. Since the 1950’s when the fast urbanization and the gradual incorporation of highrise buildings started, it can be said that the lack of political interest for the conservation of

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

the foundational plan or to develop sustainable urban strategies, was not enough to balance the multiple interests of the private sector in relation to urban development and real-state business in La Plata. This situation showed one more time that (as in all of Argentina and Latin America) even when policies followed long-term objectives, the changes of the government represent losses to the previous efforts. This situation can be understood in all stages of La Plata’s history as a city.

Confronted by such a complex scenario, the possibilities to establish a policy frame that would follow sustainable urban development and that would protect the identity of the city are limited, but not impossible. In this context, the social dimension commitment towards the protection of La Plata urban heritage values must be considered. Because of this consideration, to protect the city’s urban heritage means not only to conserve the different heritage systems that built the tangible features. It also means to give a sense to heritage value conservation wherein the urban conservation discussion would be part of the scenery in which life in La Plata is developed. As such, the ‘Historic Urban Landscape’ as a management approach constitutes a working path towards the interrelation of the protected heritage, the urban planning processes and the communities in La Plata. Policies, strategies, and future projects are important to enhance the role of the communities’ attitude that would generate heritage valorization, consciousness about heritage social importance for the identity and quality of life; and about the possibilities that heritage infers as an asset for the inner development of the city at local, whereas it seeks to reinforce/build networks at regional and national level. After all considerations, heritage is social construction.

In this context, in order to define these proceedings, as Pesoa writes in the paper "La Plata and the construction of a country, from the paper to the reality", it is necessary to look back from the 21st Century to a city that was modern in the 19th Century, but recognize that it is still modern in many ways (Pesoa, 2016). Following this point of view, it is important to take into account that the heritage systems that build the “genius loci” of the city which give sense of place and identity to the city have a high degree of adaptability to answer urban dynamics

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Conclusion Part II

of the 21st Century. In this respect, many of the heritage features of the city of La Plata must be conserved; however, many of these values could be rethought from the current needs and problems to really become an asset for sustainable urban development.

The World Heritage List inscription represents an undeniable issue on the discussion of the urban conservation of La Plata’s heritage values, a deserved recognition and an opportunity for the city. However, the ongoing Nomination project, as it was explained in the begging of this thesis, is more than an instrument to preserve heritage tangible atributes. It is a starting point to revive the discussion regarding the importance of La Plata’s heritage values at local, regional and national levels. In this regard, any result of the Nomination process must understand that the future challenges regarding the conservation of the heritage values of the city of La Plata implied objectives and actions that go beyond the World Heritage List inscription or not.

In this way, the effectiveness of the national or provincial heritage policies regarding national heritage conservation is still subject to study, especially in regards to the interconnection between the different policy levels, the heritage management processes, the non-governmental actors involved, the private sector and the local communities. Regarding the urban conservation discussion, Argentina’s main challenge is to promote heritage as an asset for sustainable urban development that merges heritage policies with urban planning strategies, and that as well would articulate and coordinate international policy with national policy (in all its interrelated levels and actors involved).

Challenged by such a complex scenario and in order to be able to reach a desirable vision, it is important to review the policy framework on regional planning and to include more innovative practices in regard to heritage values definition, heritage management and its connection with urban and regional development. Doing so requires facing current challenges in a context where the importance of heritage and urban planning is guided by territorial connections, shifting from isolated heritage monuments to cities, and to cities to regions as a future way forward.

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URBS

CIVITAS

POLIS

“Dimenticare la necessità di un continuo intreccio tra questi tre elementi, occuparsi della città (e più largamente del mondo urbano) solo sul versante della sua architettura, o solo su quello della società che la abita, o solo su quello della politica è causa di necessari fallimenti e non conduce a nessun risultato positivo. Può solo fornire contributi parziali (e perciò di necessità viziati) a chi tenta di fare una sintesi” (Edoardo Salzano, 2009 in the article ‘Urbs, civitas, polis, le tre facce dell’urbano’). ("If these three elements continuous interweaving is forgotten, and the city it is taken care (and more broadly the urban world) only because of its architecture, or only reggarding the society that inhabits it, or only bacause of politics reason; that can only causes failures. It does not lead to any positive results. It can only provide partial contributions (and therefore a vitiated circle) to those who try to make a synthesis")

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Strategy & actions

_Envisioning a strategy for the conservation of La Plata’s urban heritage system and its territorial connection

The final scope of this research focuses on the strategy for a “a solid Polis, Civis and Urbs relation in the city of La Plata”, with a strong policy framework and communities participation. It also provides suggestions for the use of ‘heritage as an asset for sustainable urban development’. In this sense, a series of urban heritage actions are proposed to conserve and valorize La Plata’s heritage systems in their ‘polis, civitas and urbs’ dimensions.

These actions strive to develop a ‘thoughtful change’ rather than merely protecting historic buildings and urban areas. Moreover, the actions proposed are not only focused on the City of La Plata; they are interrelated with the metropolitan relation between La Plata and the City of Buenos Aires, and with the other cities of the Region Pampeana. Its aims to build up a system which links shared heritage values.

A Strategy for...

“A solid 'Polis, Civis and Urbs' interrelation”.

Social, Management and Urban goals The ‘social’ goal focuses its attention on enhancing the role of the communities in the urban conservation discussion. Regarding ‘management’, the goal is to promote the ‘Historic Urban Landscape’ approach to interrelate the heritage management levels with urban governance. In this regard, it is important to seek an innovative way of dealing with regional governance. Lastly, the ‘urban’ goals seek to improve urban conditions and urban heritage conservation, by adopting a strategic attitude towards local and regional planning in which heritage constitutes an asset for sustainable urban development.

Objectives The objectives proposed are divided in three items: - Revalorize the urban heritage of Pampeana’s cities.

- Promote a Metropolitan area sustainable relation.

- Define ‘Urban Heritage Actions’ in La Plata in the context of the future nomination and beyond it.

Actions In this context, following these defined objectives, this thesis proposes to establish a network made up of localities with the same objective, and actors united by the same goals. In this respect, different Polis, Civitas and Urbs actions are defined throughout the different levels of the heritage system: the Pampeana region, metropolitan area and local level.

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Strategy & actions

Figure 108. Strategy scheme [Source: Own processing]

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

_Reinforcing the triangle basement: Civitas & Polis Actions The ‘Civitas’ actions seek to encourage community participation by developing public debates, roundtables, town-hall meetings, urban heritage workshops, conferences, etc. Meanwhile, the ‘Polis’ seeks to promote actions that foster innovative ways of management beyond the regular practices of urban planning and heritage management, by promoting ‘Historic Urban Landscape’ approach.

In this sense, community participation activities can create common objectives and enhance the contributions between government, the neighbors and stakeholders interested in the process by highlighting specific needs for cooperation.

For example, at a local level, the definition of the ongoing ‘La Plata Strategic Plan 2030’ constitutes an opportunity to include heritage in the discussion and into the participatory planning activities. This action would lead to a shift from a traditional heritage conservation approach towards the definition of strategies, policies and projects that support or strengthen historical features that the La Plata heritage systems offers.

In this regard, to enhance this idea through time and in order to promote further innovative proposals, it is important to reinforce this kind of approach among young people, promoting in school activities the awareness of heritage identity values.

Furthermore, in the context of the ongoing project to promote the World Heritage Nomination between the two Capital Cities, the improvement of the metropolitan governance to strengthen the future management relation towards a future possible inscription between the two capitals is vital, and to promote as well both cities’ sustainable urban development.

From another perspective, to guarantee metropolitan (or regional) participatory planning is key for ensuring adequate participation of the society in decision-making processes and overview and monitoring of implementation of those decisions. Regarding this point, Jen Nelles (2012) in his book “Comparative Metropolitan Policy – Governing beyond local boundaries in the imagined metropolis” proposes a new theory of “civic capital”, in which he argues that civic engagement and leadership at the regional scale can be important catalysts for metropolitan cooperation: “The extent to which the actors hold a shared image of the metropolis and engage at that scale strongly influences the degree to which local authorities will be willing and able to coordinate policies for the collective development of the region” (Nelles, 2012, in UN-Habitat Unpacking Metropolitan Governance for sustainable development, 2012).

Buenos Aires City as Capital of Argentina and La Plata as Capital of the Province of Buenos Aires relationship Figure 109. Illustrative collage [Source: Own processing with unknown source photos]

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Further, this metropolitan governance connection would help not only with the initiative for a UNESCO World Heritage List nomination for La Plata and Buenos Aires. This connection could also give assistance on the range of programs that could develop social innovation strategies, such as public-private partnerships, fostering social and economic development of the local communities. It could monitor community participation activities and promote diffusion of good practices, or to encourage programs like UNESCO Creative Cities to incentive the study of other cities in the Pampeana region.

In this respect, the ‘Civitas’ actions to revalorize the urban heritage of Pampeana’s cities are: - PROMOTE community participation & diffusion of good practices; - PROMOTE education activities among young people about the heritage values of their cities; - PROMOTE heritage training among regional stakeholders; The ‘Civitas’ actions to promote a Metropolitan sustainable connection are: - PROMOTE community participation & diffusion of good practices; - PROMOTE seminars & conferences involving the Set-Nomination project promotion; Meanwhile, the ‘Civitas’ actions in La Plata are: - PROMOTE community participation & good practices diffusion; - PROMOTE education activities among young people about urban heritage values and identity; - PROMOTE seminars & conferences involving the Set-Nomination project promotion.

The ‘Polis’ actions to revalorize the urban heritage of Pampeana’s cities are: - CREATE a Regional Landscape Observatory; - CREATE local Heritage Commissions; - PROMOTE the UNESCO Creative Cities Program.

The ‘Polis’ actions to promote a Metropolitan sustainable connection are: - CREATE a Metropolitan Agency; - PROMOTE a World Heritage List Set-Nomination La Plata-Buenos Aires.

- DEFINE LP-Berisso-Ensenada Management Plan.

Finally, the ‘Polis’ actions in La Plata in the context of the future nomination and beyond, are: - CREATE a Metropolitan Council or inter-goverment connection agency; - PROMOTE a World Heritage List Set-Nomination La Plata-Buenos Aires; - DEFINE Solid Urban Code to regulate land use in the foundation center, historical buildings interventions and high-rise buildings construction.

La Plata (Capital of the Province of Buenos Aires) and the Pampeana cities relationship

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

_Pointing Urbs Actions The ‘Urbs’ actions seek to promote heritage as an asset for sustainable development. In this sense, the distinctive nature of the “Historic Urban Landscape’ approach lies in defining the development potentials that the historic urban landscape offers.

In this context, the ‘Urbs’ actions to revalorize urban heritage in Pampeana’s cities are: - DEFINE 'Regional Landscape Catalog' in which heritage is part of this catalog investigation.

In this sense, the Landscape Catalog would link the work done by the landscape observatories to research and conservation of landscape units within planning instruments, cultivating a direct dialogue and feedback with the communities, by developing civic participation. In the Provincial context, the Catalog should be divided as well by sub-regions.

The ‘Urbs’ actions to promote a Metropolitan sustainable connection are: - DEFINE La Plata River coast area park; - RESTORE Park Iraola as Metropolitan park; - DEFINE La Plata-Berisso-Ensenada Industrial Area (YPF).

Finally, La Plata ‘Urbs’ actions to promote urban heritage conservation, are: - COMPACT urban sprawl outside the foundational plan, reconfiguring the importance of the main Avenues around the foundational center, with a ‘First Ring’ of compactness within 526th St., 137th St. and 80th St., and with a ‘Second Ring’ of compactness formed by 520th Avenue, 155th St., 90th St. and 122nd Avenue.

- COMPLETE the urban pattern in order to close the ‘First Ring’ of compactness with future urban development following foundational plan urban patterns.

- PROMOTE Slow Mobility inside the foundational plan taking advantage of the pedestrianized urban layout configuration of the foundational plan.

- DEFINE green strategies for the 'Paseo del

th destrian pa

diagonal pe

green-in belt

green strategies & slow mobility UNLP uses

‘Tolosa’ train & bus station

‘Los Hornos’ orchard market

‘Meridiano V’ Cultural park

reuse of abandoned train stations and barracks

2nd Ring

1st Ring

compact urban pattern; complete urban layout

Public buildings heritage conservation Monumental axis ‘Heritage Path’

restore foundational axis

Figure 110. La Plata's urban actions [Source: Own processing]

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Strategy & actions

Bosque' Urban Park, the system of Parks and Public squares, the system of the Perimeter and the urban groves in the foundational plan.

- REUSE urban abandoned railyards and stations, in order to re-valorize the area surrounding them, and encourage new centers of congregation in the city around their location.

- RESTORE foundational axis urban values by improving the pedestrian path conditions and promoting initiatives that seek to connect the uses of the San Martin Park with the Malvinas public square and Moreno Main Public Square.

Figure 111. Ilustrative diagram of La Plata's urban actions [Source: Own processing]

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Case Studies

Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

a. Catàlegs de paisatge de Catalunya (Catalunya landscape’s catalogues)

b. The twin cities: Minneapolis-St. Paul.

182

Case Studies_Actions references

The Landscape Catalogues constituted an important step into the conservation experience of the Catalunya Region. The strategy used was to establish landscape observatories to link the research and conservation of landscape units with the planning instruments, cultivating a direct dialogue and feedback with the affected communities, up to get to settle civic-political participation. To make a Landscape Catalog, it was created a Landscape Observatory that prepared a Prototype Landscape Catalogue which establishes a basic conceptual, methodological and procedural outline to ensure that the catalogues are put together in a coherent and coordinated way. In this sense, the contents of the Catalogues are: - An inventory of the landscape values presented in the relevant area a list of the activities and processes affecting, or which have most affected the configuration of the present landscape.

- Signal the main routes and areas from which the landscape is perceived; - Define of areas of landscape units, understood as structurally, functionally and/or visually coherent areas, which may be subject to a differentiated regime of protection, management or planning.

- Define of landscape quality objectives for each landscape unit.

- Outline measurements and actions needed to achieve the landscape quality objectives.

These six points are developed using a written memorandum of each area; photographic archive; maps (Visibilities and inter-visibilities from the main points and routes for observing the landscape; Ecological landscape values; Aesthetic landscape values; Historical values; Productive values; Social values; Religious and spiritual values; Symbolic and identity-based values; Landscape dynamics; Landscape quality objectives); inventory of landscape agents and, a database with information for updating and consultation with the principal stakeholders. (authorities, groups, universities, etc.) involved in the protection, management and planning of the landscape in the region.

In this sense, the Landscape Catalogues supply information of great interest and in this way, contribute to the definition and application of a new landscape and planning policy for the region.

Minneapolis–Saint Paul is a major metropolitan area built around the Mississippi, Minnesota and St. Croix rivers in east central Minnesota. The area is commonly known as the Twin Cities after its two largest cities, Minneapolis (the city with the largest population in the state) and Saint Paul (the state capital) developed a governing strategy under a common ‘Metropolitan Council’ as a regional governmental agency and planning organization. Despite the ‘Twin’ name, both cities are independent municipalities with defined borders. However, the Metropolitan Council has access to part of the property taxes in the region to finance urban projects, certain services and targeted transport subsidies. This Council evolved into a Regional Government appointed by the Minnesota State Government, and subsequently to a public-sector corporation in the Twin cities area.

In 1967, at the urging of many local government, business and civic leaders, the Minnesota Legislature created the Metropolitan Council to deal with regional issues that transcended boundaries. Between 1967 and 1974, additional legislation created the Metropolitan Transit Commission (now Metro Transit); a regional sewer system; a unique tax-base sharing system; the regional park system and, the Metro HRA. Focusing in the regional park system, the twin cities establish since 1974, a system of 53 parks and park reserves of more than 340 miles of interconnected bikeways, and 8 special recreation features. The system provides a wealth of opportunities for recreation, exercise and, it also preserves significant green space and wildlife habitat of the region (https://metrocouncil.org/Parks.aspx) Metropolitan Councils are common in the USA and they are established to respond to the need for broad-based general coordination. However, in Minneapolis–Saint Paul’s case, each city has a separate government. In this sense, it is important to explain that ‘Metropolitan governance reforms have rarely emerged from local government initiatives only. A national or provincial government has usually initiated change by either imposing or encouraging it (UN-Report about Governing Metropolis, 2006). Although many metropolitan governments have been established by a higher-tier government, experience shows that such institution will often be weak unless they are supported by the local governments in the area with which it must work. (Slack, 2007 in UN-Report about Governing Metropolis).

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

c.1. Barcelona 'Superilies' (Superblocks)

Figure 112. Barcelona superblocks. [Source: Cities of the future, 2017]

c.2. High-line Park New York

Figure 113 and 114 (From left to rigth).

High Line, 1990 and today [Source: friendsofthehighline.org]

c.3. A Green Strategy for London

Figure 115. London green strategies [Source, Turner, 1991]

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Case Studies_Actions references

Barcelona has since 2014 an ongoing ambitious plan: the ‘Superilles’ (superblocks) as mini neighborhoods.

To reach it, the plan will go back to Cerdà’s philosophy and take it to the next level, to the modern world, by making it live with and for the ecosystem. “We have, as a base [for the plan], Cerdà’s Eixample, which was undermined by greed. What was green in the plan was slowly overtaken and built on. And then, when cars arrived, they slowly overtook more and more space ... We want to reclaim those green spaces and that can only be done through a drastic mobility change.” (Rueda, 2017 in Cities of the Future 2017) Barcelona’s new plan consists of creating big superilles (superblocks) through a series of gradual interventions that will repurpose existing infrastructure, starting with traffic management through to changing road signs and bus routes. Superblocks will be smaller than neighborhoods, but bigger than actual blocks. In Eixample, a superblock will consist of nine existing blocks of the grid. Car, scooter, lorry and bus traffic will then be restricted to just the roads in the superblock perimeters, and they will only be allowed in the streets in between if they are residents or providing local businesses. In this sense, what was once a design to make Barcelona healthier, now is dramatically rethought for the same reasons (Rueda, 2017 in Cities of the Future 2017).

The High Line was built in the 1930s as a part of a vast infrastructure project called “west side improvement”. It is a 1,45-mile-long (2,3km) of elevated railway realized to remove dangerous trains from the street of Manhattan. In 1999, the “Friends of the High Line”, a non-profit group in partnership with the city of New York worked to maintain the structure as an elevated public park to avoid the structure demolition. The High Line park nowadays crosses 22 city blocks in throght Manhattan. The strategy was to create an “agri-texture” able to combine soil and building material, accommodating “the wild, the cultivated, the intimate and the hyper-social”. In this sense, it was created a path with a new paving and planting systems in which the strategy of its conception was to focus into the pre-existences: either railways elements or vegetation that grew on the rail tracks during the 25 years of disuse (...) Each section of railroad track has been marked, mapped for its location, and later, many of them are returned to their original locations (Geroldi, 2010).

Nowadays the park is owned by the City of New York, as a public park maintained, operated, and programmed by “Friends of the High Line”, in partnership with the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. Althougth the park can be an example of gentrification space, the original idea and the park itselft recalls the importance of the long traditional history in the city of public-private partnership for the conservation and development of public areas.

In 1944, after the World Wars, it was developed the ‘County of London Plan’ by Sir Leslie Patrick Abercrombie. This plan established a “Park System” in which the gardens flow to park, the park from parkway, the parkway to green wedge and from green wedge to green belt (Turner, 2014). In this sense, in 1991 it was presented a project for the city of London to adopt a “Green Strategy” that ‘would build a “Greenspace Web” for pedestrians, and the Web would be integrated with separate but overlapping networks of cycle routes, long-distance bridleways and ecological corridors’ (Turner, 1991). In this sense, the bases of the ‘Greenspace Web’ are founded on the analysis of both the Abercrombie Plan, in which the ‘Green Strategy’ stressed the need to connect the open spaces. The difference is that Abercrombie planned a single-layer ‘Park System’ and, the ‘Green Strategy’ set of overlapping networks (as shown in the diagrams of the original proposal ‘A Green Strategy for London’ that was made by Turner in 1991).

In this sense, London ‘Greenspace Web’ is integrated with separate but overlapping networks of cycle routes, long-distance bridleways and ecological corridors. By this strategy, the ‘Web’ constituted an environmentally pleasant network of pedestrian routes. They provide recreation routes for walkers and joggers, they increase the accessibility of existing public parks, to create links between pedestrian origins and destinations, for journeys to work, to schools, to the shops and to public transport interchanges. The pedestrian zone incorporated the existing parks, riverside walks, civic walks, shopping malls, footpaths, pedestrianized streets, and public rights of way through the green belt.

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Learning from the Historic Urban Landscape. The case of La Plata

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Acknowledgements

Al escribir estas lineas quisiera mencionar a las tantas personas que, de alguna u otra manera, han sido participes de este proceso y que han contribuido con esta tesis. En ese sentido, agradezco al Profesor Balducci y a Chiara, por la ayuda y guía en estos meses. A su vez, debo hacer especial mención a las tantas conversaciones sobre La Plata con los profesionales de Fundación CEPA y con diversos profesores de la Facultad de Arquitectura de la Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Además no puedo olvidarme de tantas charlas sobre mi tesis con mis amigos y colegas en Argentina, mis ex-compañeros en la UNESCO y mis compañeros en Mantova; como también de la paciencia y ayuda de Andrea durante este proceso y, de los afectuosos gestos de toda su familia. Por último, y por ello no menos importante, este trabajo ha sido posible gracias al apoyo incondicional de mis padres, Maria Ines y Marcelo. A ellos, un sentido agradecimiento.

I would like to make special mention to many people who, in one way or another, have participated in this process and have contributed with this thesis. In this regard, I appreciate Professor Balducci and Chiara advice during these months. Moreover I must acknowledge CEPA Foundation's professionals regarding many conversations about La Plata, and the interesting discussions with my professors at National University of La Plata. Furthermore, while I'm writing these lines, I can not forget about many talks regarding my thesis topic with my friends and colleagues in Argentina, my colleagues in UNESCO, and my friends in Mantova. As well as the patience and help of Andrea during this process, and all the kind actions of his entire family.

Finally, this work would have never been possible without the unconditional support of my parents, Maria Ines and Marcelo; my most heartfelt thanks to them.