Abstract
Historic plazas play a major role in improving or creating place identity, place memory, and belonging of heritage areas. They maintain elements of tangible and intangible heritage, such as accommodating social networks, traditions, lifestyles, traditional crafts, festivals, or rituals. Above all, they manifest a unique sense of place, and collective memory of cities to local communities, contributing to the historical character of heritage areas. The paper claims that the revitalization of historic plazas intends to reconcile conserving their historical urban landscape (HUL) to meet the changing requirements of local communities. It argues that revitalizing historical plazas is an innovative approach that helps to overcome the current urban conservation gaps in many heritage areas. Likewise, it strengthens the perceptions of the built heritage and historic buildings, while retaining their historic character and increasing their social vitality and performance. Furthermore, the distinctiveness of historic plazas can uncover the hidden forms and fabrics in historic areas and inspire their future development. This review paper aims to describe how historical public spaces as places of social interactions and traditional cultural activities are significant in conserving historic living areas. It aims to investigate a variety of approaches to the conservation of historical buildings/sites through the revitalization of historic plazas as multidimensional spaces in selected case studies. The methodology used is to study the usage of current patterns of selected historic public places; to analyze various strategies implemented to revitalize those patterns. The main objective is to contribute in formulating a practical approach to enhance the liveliness and the quality of life of historic plazas; to fit the residents’ culture as an integral part of urban conservation.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Cantacuzino, S. (1990) A policy for architectural conservation. In A. H. Imamuddin, et al. (Eds.), Architectural and urban conservation in the Islamic world, papers in progress (Vol. 1, p. 14). The Aga Khan Trust for Culture
Cattella, V., Dinesb, N., Geslerc, W., & Curtisd, S. (2008). Mingling, observing, and lingering: Everyday public spaces and their implications for well-being and social relations. Health & Place, 14, 544–561.
Chandan, S., Kumar, A. (2019) Review of urban conservation practices in historic cities. International Journal on Emerging Technologies, 10(1), 74–84. ISSN No. (Online): 2249-3255
Cooper, C., & Francis, C. (1990). People places: Design guidelines for urban open space. Van Nostrand Rienhold.
Couch, C. (1990). Urban renewal theory and practice. Basingstoke: Macmillan Lisbon charter (1995). ICOMOS. https://www.icomos.org/en/charters-and-otherdoctrinal-texts
Della Torre, S. (2020). Italian perspective on the planned preventive conservation of architectural heritage. Frontiers of Architectural Research, 10(1), 108–116. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foar.2020.07.008
Ebbe, K. (2009). Infrastructure and Heritage conservation: Opportunities for urban revitalization and economic development. Urban Development Unit, World Bank. Can be downloaded from https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/10260
Ehrenreich, B. (2007). Dancing in the streets: a History of collective joy. Granta Books.
Elbeah, B., Elshater, A., & Toama, A. (2022). Tactical urbanism for improving livability in lost spaces of Cairo, a book chapter published 2022. In Advances in architecture, engineering, and technology (pp. 3–13). Can be downloaded from https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86913-7_1
French, J. S. (1978). Urban space. Kendall-Hunt Publishing Company, Iowa.
Gehl, J., & Gemzoe, L. (2001). New city spaces. The Danish Architectural Press.
Helmy, M. (2005) Townscape fundamentals for public art in squares and plazas. Master Thesis, Ain Shams University.
Heritage sites development: Planning, managing and monitoring cultural heritage sites in South East Europe. CHERPLAN.
Holcomb, H. B., & Beauregard, R. A. (1981). Revitalizing cities. Association of American Geographers.
Krier, R. (1979). Urban space. Rizzoli international Publications Inc.
Litva, A., Coast, J., Donovan, J., Eyles, J., Shepherd, M., Tacchi, J., et al. (2002). The public is too subjective: Public involvement at different levels of health-care decision making. Social Science and Medicine, 54(12), 1825–1837.
Lynch, K. (1960). The image of the city. M.I.T.Press.
Lynch, K. (1981). A theory of good city form. M.I.T.Press.
Ruoss, E., & Alfarè, L. (Eds.). (2013). Sustainable tourism as driving force for cultural heritage sites development: Planning, managing and monitoring cultural heritage sites in South East Europe. CHERPLAN.
Stanley, B. W., Stark, B. L., Johnston, K. L., & Smith, M. E. (2012). Urban open spaces in historical perspective: A transdisciplinary typology and analysis. Urban Geography, 33(8), 1089–1117. https://doi.org/10.2747/0272-3638.33.8.1089
Sutton, K., & Fahmi, W. (2001). The rehabilitation of old Cairo. Habitat International, 26(2002), 73–93.
Tiesdell, S., Oc, T. & Heath, T. (1996) Revitalizing historic urban quarters (pp. 18–39, 41–42, 135). Cornwall: Architectural Press.
UNESCO. (2004). Recommendations of the international conference on the safeguarding of tangible and intangible cultural heritage: Towards an integrated approach. UNESCO. https://ich.unesco.org/en/convention#art2
UNESCO. (2014). Developing historic cities: Keys for understanding and taking actions, Published by UNESCO World Heritage Centre, France-UNESCO Cooperation Agreement UNESCO/CLD. Can be downloaded from https://smartnet.niua.org/sites/default/files/resources/228542M.pdf
UNISCO. (2013). New life for historic cities: The historic urban landscape approach explained (02/07/2013) © UNESCO | World Heritage Centre Can be downloaded from https://whc.unesco.org/en/activities/727
Veirier, L. (2008). Historic districts for all: A social and human approach for sustainable revitalization Manual for professionals, produced for the UNESCO (pp. 22–24). Can be downloaded from https://mirror.unhabitat.org/downloads/docs/10362_1_594123.pdf
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Helmy, M. (2024). Revitalizing Historic Plazas for Integrated Urban Conservation. In: German��, M.L., Akagawa, N., Versaci, A., Cavalagli, N. (eds) Conservation of Architectural Heritage (CAH). CAH 2022. Advances in Science, Technology & Innovation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33222-7_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33222-7_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-33221-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-33222-7
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)