World Heritage Young Professionals Forum
Memory: Lost and Recovered Heritage
25 June – 4 July 2017
Warsaw and Kraków
The World Heritage Young Professionals Forum is a
companion event to the 41st Session of the World
Heritage Committee which will be held in Kraków on 2–
12 July 2017. Poland will host this prestigious international event for the first time in its history.
The 2017 Forum is a joint project of the Polish National Commission for UNESCO and the
International Cultural Centre in Kraków. It will gather 32 young professionals working in the field of
heritage preservation, including experts from 21 states that comprise the current World Heritage
Committee (Azerbaijan, Burkina Faso, Croatia, Cuba, Finland, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kazakhstan,
Lebanon, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, South Korea, Tanzania, Tunisia, Vietnam and the
Republic of Zimbabwe) , as well as representatives of Belarus, Czech Republic, Egypt, Hungary,
India, Iraq, Lithuania, Germany, Mali, Russian Federation,Slovakia, Syria, Turkey and Ukraine.
The main theme of the Young Professionals Forum is lost and recovered heritage. For this very
reason it is to be launched in Warsaw. Professor Jacek Purchla, the ICC Director and the President
of the 41st Session of the World Heritage Committee says: “We wish to present Warsaw as a
special case study, namely the city that, as a result of WWII, was damaged and then rebuilt, as well
as to show the power of the Polish school of conservation. The second part of the Forum will be
held in Kraków, where we’ll investigate our triumphs and challenges related to the management of
such an extensive urban historic complex in the age of McDonaldisation and Disneyland. As a
matter of fact, there is much in which should take great pride – just to mention the achievements
of the Social Committee for the Restoration of Monuments of Kraków and the creation of the
Kraków Culture Park”.
For Poland, the Forum, which is to be attended by young heritage professionals from all over the
world, will provide a unique opportunity to promote the host country’s contribution to and its
understanding of heritage preservation and protection.
Over the last couple of years the Young Professionals Fora have become the obligatory companion
events to the annual sessions of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee. The participants of the
2017 edition, all between 22 and 32 years of age, represent different fields related to the protection
and preservation of cultural heritage. The participants have been selected via call for applications.
The Forum will provide them with an opportunity to broaden their knowledge with regard to the
implementation of the World Heritage Convention, the World Heritage Committee’s methods of
operation, opportunities and challenges as far as preservation, conservation and renovation of
selected sites of outstanding universal value on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Poland, the host of the Form, will share its unique experience regarding the reconstruction of
damaged and destroyed cities with an international group of experts. During the first four days (25–
28 June), the Forum participants will investigate the case of Warsaw, where they will pay visits to the
Royal Castle, the Warsaw Rising Museum, the Museum of Warsaw, as well as the Royal Łazienki
Museum. Some of the major topics addressed during these days will be the destruction of cities due
to military conflicts, the problems of rebuilding and the limits of reconstruction. An important
element of the Warsaw visit will be a special workshop dedicated to the symbolic meaning of
rebuilding and reconstruction of cities, as well as to actions targeting culture with the aim of its
destruction and annihilation.
The following days (28 June–3 July) will be dedicated to the city of Kraków, where the participants
will become confronted with the issues related to contemporary challenges faced by historic cities
(e.g. mass tourism, suburbanisation, gentrification, unlimited urban development). Kraków, with its
parts inscribed onto the UNESCO World Heritage List, will serve as a special study case. The
participants will also visit the Tyniec Benedictine Monastery (the case of destroyed heritage which
has been successfully reconstructed, with its identity and function carefully preserved) and the
“Wieliczka” Salt Mine (how to tackle the threats posed by mass tourism). Finally, the Forum
attendees will pay a visit to the Ojców National Park, where they will become introduced to the
methods of protection of the natural and cultural landscape in Poland, as well as issues concerned
with the rebuilding of tangible heritage, especially one that was destroyed a long time ago.
Within the framework of the lectures and workshops, the Forum participants will also present their
own, country-specific cases which correspond to the major theme of the event. For Poland – with its
experience of the damages brought by WWII and its policies of urban planning aborted as recently as
10 years ago – the problems raised by the Forum participants will be not only important but also
relevant.
The Young Professionals Forum will close with the adoption of the Kraków Declaration – a message
to the members of the 41st Session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee on how to tackle the
destruction of cities.
Organisers: International Cultural Centre and the Polish National Commission for UNESCO
The World Heritage Young Professionals Forum has been financially supported by the Ministry of
Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland.
***
Prof. Dr. Jacek Purchla:
[…] Today, Poland takes pride in its many talented architects. But, at the same time, Poland has no
proper city planning. We do have an army of excellent artists and conservators, yet we are witnesses
to a massive degradation of public spaces and numerous conflicts in the very hearts of our
metropolises. Consequently, one finds it difficult not to talk out loud about a major crisis: the crisis of
city planning, of space management, of efficiency with regard to the protection of cultural values in
the urban contexts […]. Deprived of intellectual background based on an anthropological approach to
culture and new methods of the management of heritage resources, we “flounder about” between
seemingly conflicting positions, between heritage and modernity.
“Preface” [in:] Joseph Rykwert, The Seduction of Place: The History and Future of Cities, Kraków:
International Cultural Centre, 2013
Prof. Dr. Andrzej Tomaszewski was among the first to address the problem of bringing together
tangible and intangible values for the purposes of rebuilding and conservation:
[...] [t]o open oneself up to intangible values and the need to protect them on a par with tangible
values is tantamount to creating a new theoretical basis for discussing reconstruction – considered
the most radical form of preservation through materialisation of intangible values – of the “spirit of
the place of memory.” However, it necessitates a social awareness that one creates a work which is a
testament to its culture and its times (i.e. the period when it was reconstructed) and which does not
aspire to being an authentic historical object.
“From Sacrum to Profanum, from Genius Loci to Culturally Relevant Sites” [in:] Contemporary
Challenges of Conservation Theory in Poland, Bogusław Szmygin (ed.), Warszawa and Lublin:
Politechnika Lubelska and ICOMOS, 2008, pp. 169–172.
Project leader: Ms. Ewa Wojtoń, tel +48 12 42 42 870; [email protected]
/June 2017/