A VALUES-BASED APPROACH TO HERITAGE

A VALUES-BASED APPROACH TO HERITAGE PLANNING: RAISING AWARENESS OF THE DARK SIDE OF DESTRUCTION AND CONSERVATION*

ABSTRACT

Values and a values-based approach to management and decision-making processes over cultural heritage are explored and critically reviewed. It is argued that a broader range of values, particularly those emanating from the ‘dark side’, should be accommodated into future values-based theory and practice if decisions are to be more comprehensive and transparent. The paper underlines the necessity for those working with cultural heritage, including within the arena of statutory land-use planning, to engage more deeply with crossdisciplinary and international perspectives on heritage values. *Article accepted in November 2012 for publication in Town Planning Review – published following year in Volume 84(5), pp.583-604

Contents

Page

Introduction

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The centrality of values and meanings of the dark side

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The bonded nature of conservation and destruction

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Social constructions of values in heritage conservation

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Assertions of the benefits of a values-based management approach

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Revealing the dark side of heritage values

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Conclusions

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References

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Introduction

The centrality of values to the protection and on-going management of cultural heritage underpins their relevance to planning theory and practice. An increasing contemporary emphasis on values has been accompanied by the emergence of a values-based approach to the management of cultural heritage and what has been dubbed a ‘values-centred theory’ (Mason, 2008, 304). Many aspects of decision-making over cultural heritage are located principally within the arena of statutory land-use planning, at least in the various constituent parts of the United Kingdom (Hobson, 2004). Indeed, Pendlebury (2012, 6) talks of a ‘conservation-planning assemblage’ in England whereby ‘architectural conservation has been increasingly linked into systems and processes of town planning and has acquired values and tropes from planning’. It is, therefore, critically important that values are considered clearly by those working within this context. The inherently contested nature of heritage (Tunbridge, 1984; Graham, et al., 2000; Bruce and Creighton, 2006; Beaumont, 2009), and, by implication, of heritage values, further supports the necessity for those working within the field of land-use planning to critically engage with values-based approaches and to assess the potential consequences arising from their wider adoption. This imperative is arguably even more urgent in a climate of economic disruption when conflicts between conservation and development interests may come into sharper focus, thereby invoking the essential mediating function of the land-use planning system.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the emergent values-based approach to the management of cultural heritage, and in particular the emphasis placed on integrating a broader and more holistic range of values. More specifically, a number of ‘dark side’ values are introduced which have hitherto not received widespread attention in the international literature concerning heritage values. It is argued that these dark side values, which are ultimately revealed through the interrelationship between the concepts of destruction and conservation in respect of cultural heritage, should be integrated into future thinking on values and values-based approaches. This paper also contends that cognisance of a crossdisciplinary and international literature is essential for decision-makers seeking to engage in discourses over values and values-based approaches. A broad-based literature on heritage values, conservation, and destruction is, therefore, reviewed and extended, with aspects problematised within the paper. The centrality of values to the conservation of cultural

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heritage is firstly underlined and the precise usage of the term dark side within the paper addressed.

The centrality of values and meanings of the dark side

The contention that values are central to the conservation of cultural heritage has been widely debated in recent decades. Values have been explored at high level conferences (e.g. Capturing the Public Value of Heritage, London, 2006 – Heritage Lottery Fund, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, English Heritage and the National Trust; Values and Criteria in Heritage Conservation, Florence, 2007 – International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) International Committee, and the Foundation Romualdo Del Bianco). Values have also become the principal concern of international conventions and national policy documents, the former exemplified by the 2005 Council of Europe Faro Convention, otherwise known as the Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society. That many of these initiatives have occurred since the turn of the millennium supports the view of the architectural conservation theorist, Jukka Jokilehto (1999) that values are the key issue in modern conservation theory and practice. It follows that values are likely to have a significant influence over cultural heritage and all those charged with its planning, management, future development and use. The linked evolution towards a values-based approach to the management of cultural heritage is also grounded in an increasing number of academic and professional publications addressing both theoretical and practical aspects. This body of literature has tended towards a normative underlining of the possibilities offered by values-based approaches, thereby leaving a distinct gap for a more critically reflective consideration of their key tenets.

The dark side in the context of this paper signifies an enveloping and structuring term which encompasses a broad range of values that are often concealed, ignored, or are in direct opposition to those positive characteristics generally associated with expressions of heritage value. Dark side values underlie justifications for the destruction of cultural heritage, either actively or passively, and tend, therefore, to be revealed most clearly in relation to actual or threatened destruction. The term has been borrowed from Yiftachel (1998), and the imperative informing its usage is analogous to his discussion of social control and oppression in relation to theories of urban and regional planning. Yiftachel (1998, 400) considered a 4

dialectical process shaping and reshaping public and planning policies, which, he states, is often ignored by planning theorists who ‘tend to overlook planning’s oppressive dimension and thereby literally keep planning’s dark side “in the dark”’. In short, this paper asserts that the darker side of heritage values should not to be kept ‘in the dark’.1

Second, dark side values can also be taken to represent potential expressions of dissonance, articulated in a manner consistent with emergent values-based approaches. Dissonant heritage, as elaborated by Tunbridge and Ashworth (1996), refers to issues of discordance and disinheritance that are argued to be integral to the concept of heritage, and are particularly evident in its use (or abuse) as a cultural, political and economic resource. Following Tunbridge and Ashworth (1996, 21), being alert to heritage dissonance through a ‘taxonomic description of the issues’ can lead ‘directly to the management of behaviour to reduce its incidence’. However, whereas dissonant heritage is interpreted as predominantly representing a theoretical recognition of the inherent contestation and conflict within heritage, values-based approaches appear to be more explicitly concerned with the practice of management of that heritage and its dissonance. In other words, acknowledging dissonant heritage is not in itself a management approach, but articulating dark side values as part of values-based approaches can potentially provide a means by which such dissonance is expressed.

The bonded nature of conservation and destruction

Utilising what will be posited as the inherently bonded nature of conservation and destruction, and the dark side of heritage values, this paper argues that a values-based approach does not fundamentally alter the structural dichotomy at the heart of cultural heritage and its management. This dichotomy relates to a theoretical tension between conservation and destruction, a relationship which is both explicit and implicit within decision-making processes relating to cultural heritage. Moreover, the outcomes of particular decisions may be especially acute at a scale larger than an individual structure or site where the immediate effects of demolition, for example, might be more pronounced. This interplay between conservation and destruction requires further illumination if decisions are to be relatively more accountable, transparent and theoretically grounded; indeed, the argument presented here underlines the necessity for a broader range of values to be considered within

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the values-based process, including those that may be deemed exclusionary, destructive and emanating from the dark side.

It is almost a cliché to state that society only values something once it has been lost or threatened with destruction (Stanley-Price, 2005; Peckham, 2003; Lowenthal, 1998; Wright, 1985). Numerous examples could be cited of cause célèbre acts of destruction or heroic campaigns to save buildings and areas thought worthy of protection, often mobilising what Glendinning (2003, 372) characterised as the ‘highly politicised “shock” language inherited from Ruskin and Morris’. In London, for example, the demolition of the Euston Arch in the 1960s and the reprieve for Covent Garden in the 1970s are recurring examples in the literature documenting the ups and downs of the modern conservation movement at that critical period. There is considerable evidence, however, to support the contention that the inventorying and eventual protection of cultural heritage derived considerable momentum from periods clouded by bouts of actual, or impending, destruction. Any suggestion of such a bonded relationship between destruction and conservation is by no means a new one, although an apparently contradictory statement such as this would seem to run counter to many commonly held assumptions that destruction is the exact opposite of, and inimical to, conservation. Peckham (2003), for example, commented that most debates surrounding heritage are framed by the threat of imminent extinction. The preference towards conservation, according to Holtorf (2005, 231), derived extra impetus from ‘the unstoppable process of destruction in the name of modernity’. A conceptual linkage was also drawn by Gamboni (1997, 336), who viewed the conservation and destruction of cultural property as essentially two-sides of the same coin, with elimination the other side of preservation in what he termed a ‘Janus-like process of building heritage’. The socially constructed nature of cultural heritage cannot, therefore, be divorced from destruction, whether that destruction is threatened in the present, or a result of a contemporary reassessment of values following acts of destruction in the past.

Theorising destruction in this manner has often emanated from an archaeological perspective on cultural heritage, a fact referenced by a number of scholars and attributed to the inherently destructive nature of the archaeological process of digging (Rakoczy, 2008; Thys-Şenocak and Aslan, 2008; Johnson, 2001; Meskell, 2002). Other forms of heritage can be considered within this context, and there are many illustrative examples that are indicative of a symbiotic relationship between destruction and conservation. In relation to the built heritage, the 6

establishment of the National Buildings Records in both Scotland and England occurred in the early 1940s as a direct consequence of the threat to historic buildings and areas posed by aerial bombardment (Briggs, 1952; Lambourne, 2001; Ferguson, 2008). More recent conflicts have also underlined a concern for cultural heritage in the midst of war, and they are particularly pertinent in light of the apparent deployment of cultural heritage destruction as part of the tactical armoury of conflict. The breakup of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s is a case in point, prompting, as it did, a plethora of surveys, reports and books inventorying the destruction of cultural heritage. These were either commissioned by governments or those sympathetic to the various protagonists in the conflict, or advanced by outside, international organisations, such as the Council of Europe (see, for example, Baumel, 1993), United Nations (M'Baye, 1994) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (Riedlmayer, 2002).

Although destruction through war and conflict can be bracketed as abnormal, with such situations subject to very specific and potentially propagandistic dynamics, a close connection between destruction and conservation has also been notable in more peaceful times. Indeed, the reaction against the demolition of buildings and areas during what Pendlebury (2008, 1) called the ‘strife-torn development struggles’ of the 1960s and 1970s, hastened in more widespread governmental systems of protection in the UK, for example, under the land-use planning system. In the process, this also intimately linked the fate of surviving, but non-statutorily protected buildings and areas with those already gone. The subsequent rise of a populist conservation movement had a significant influence on this metamorphosis. As Delafons (1997) suggested in his study of the policy history of the built heritage in the UK, as attitudes change, so usually does government policy, although not necessarily immediately due to periods of inertia. Following Miele (2005), much the same occurred at the time across Europe and North America when regulatory regimes largely assumed their prevailing form.

Such perspectives presuppose a common conceptualisation and understanding of what is meant by destruction. The term is, however, considered to be a more nuanced concept than it may initially appear, potentially carrying numerous connotations, whether specifically for the built heritage, within the broader field of heritage, or, indeed, when concerning the fate of art objects. In the context of the destruction of art, Gamboni (1997, 19) believed it to be an oversimplifying concept which ‘cannot account for significant differences in the treatment of 7

an object’. For some, a kind of rhetorical destruction of heritage can be said to have occurred without any physical intervention to a structure or place, but can instead relate to the privileging of certain, particularly expert and national, values over those of the local community in the interpretation and management of cultural heritage resources (see, for example, Waterton’s (2008) discussion of Cawood Castle in Yorkshire, England). For others, modifications to the physical fabric of a structure or place, including its restoration, could conceivably count as a destructive act. Such ‘restorative destructions’ may have been what William Morris had in mind when composing the manifesto of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, where he decried ‘the changes wrought in our day under the name of Restoration’, which represented, to him, ‘a double process of destruction and addition’ (quoted in Stanley Price et al., 1996, 320). The contemporary practice of façadism, whereby all but the façade of an older building is removed, likewise brings into sharp focus differing conceptions of authenticity (Pendlebury, 2009; 2012), and hence also of destruction. So too does the assertion that ‘physical’ preservation is not necessarily required ‘in order to “do” conservation’, as other objects, such as reports and photographs, created in relation to buildings in advance of their demolition, are argued to be sufficient to engender an appreciation of their heritage (Tait and While, 2009, 734). These instances are by no means exhaustive but serve briefly to illustrate some of the underlying tensions and contradictions implicit within the concept of destruction.

The concept of destruction can also be interpreted as being culturally specific (Meskell, cited in Harrison, 2010). Indeed, the very idea of the monument runs counter to prevailing values in some societies which do not produce many monumental buildings and do not emphasise the permanence of structures (Chung, 2005). Destroying such structures would not, therefore, provoke the sort of emotive reaction that may be expected to occur in other places. The Igbo people of Nigeria, for example, are said to destroy or neglect artfully created structures such as the mbari houses to ensure the continued vitality of the urge to recreate, thereby privileging cultural processes rather than tangible end products (Harding, 1999). Similarly, Byrne (1995, 267) highlighted how the reconstruction and rebuilding of Thai Buddhist stupas (religious burial mounds or monuments), following processes considered representative of important religious practices, routinely ‘imperil or consume the original fabric and structure of old and often ancient stupas’. This honouring of what might be termed a creative cultural act, would run counter to typically Western practices of conservation, as promoted by the likes of the International Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and 8

Sites, otherwise known as the Venice Charter, which usually privileges the retention and maintenance of the original physical fabric of structures or places (Congress of Architects and Technicians of Historic Monuments, 1964). It follows that acts interpreted and denoted as destruction is as much a social construction as conservation.

Destruction clearly has material consequences that may be manifest in the removal of physical fabric from a structure or place, and, at its most extreme, can result in the violent removal or destruction of an entire structure or place. Nevertheless, the meanings and interpretations attached to destruction can vary between people and cultures, differentially over time and space, and in myriad other ways. As Johnson (2001, 77) observed, it is difficult to think about ‘how discourse differentially frames material destruction’. When considering past instances of destruction certain buildings or areas that no longer exist may be elevated in hindsight to a status that they never previously enjoyed; creating what might be termed a retrospective heritage. In addition, even though threat of wholesale change to established urban environments in advanced economies may no longer exist to the extent that it once did, Pendlebury (2012, 9) nevertheless acknowledges that potential demolition remains a ‘powerful binding discourse’ in the UK, for example. Destruction is, therefore, a critical concept and prism through which to approach an exploration of heritage values.

Social constructions of values in heritage conservation

Social constructionist thinking in relation to both heritage and values is, according to Gibson and Pendlebury (2009), the dominant theoretical position held across the humanities and social sciences. Drawing on scholarly and practice-based literature, this section reflects on selected interpretations of values and the use of typologies in order to inform an appreciation of the prevailing values-based discourse and its significance for cultural heritage planning and management. According to Smith et al. (2010), any consideration of values must necessarily begin in the realm of ethics and morals. Several philosophical perspectives have tended to deal with values as sets of morals and principles guiding action. Of more relevance to a discussion on cultural heritage, however, is the sense highlighted by Mason (2002), who defines values as being the qualities and characteristics seen in things, particularly positive characteristics (both actual and potential). A similar perspective is adopted by the Getty Conservation Institute (de la Torre and Mason, 2002, 4), which defined values as a ‘set of positive characteristics or qualities perceived in cultural objects or sites by certain individuals 9

or groups’. For Jameson (2008, 429), values represent ‘attributes given to sites, objects, and resources, and associated intellectual and emotional connections that make them important and define their significance for a person, group, or community’. Finally, Jokilehto (2006, 2) succinctly defined value in relation to cultural heritage to be ‘a social association of qualities to things’, indicating the necessity for an emotive communal attachment before something can become heritage.

What these definitions illustrate is that value is a social construct. From this epistemological position, rather than being inherent to a particular structure or place, value is instead viewed as being socially ascribed, whether by individuals, groups or organisations (Lipe, 1984; Smith, 2006; Pendlebury, 2009). Value can also be seen to be a relative attribute, constituted through different relationships and over time, and ultimately dependent on a process of comparison with other things (Nancy, 2005; Zancheti and Jokilehto, 1997). This is not to suggest that other perspectives on heritage values do not persist, particularly those which tend to emphasise the tangible qualities of a structure or place with an intrinsic interest bound up in surviving physical fabric. It is to be expected that debates exist over critical issues with respect to concepts such as authenticity and integrity in relation to cultural heritage (see, for example, Starn, 2002; Matero, 2006; Jones, 2010). Indeed, following Burr (1995), a social constructionist perspective actively invites a critical stance to taken-for-granted knowledge; situates knowledge within specified historical and cultural contexts; perceives knowledge as sustained by social processes; and asserts that particular interpretations of knowledge determine specific actions. Deliberation and debate are thus pre-requisites of establishing a discourse and informing action whether this is, in this context, to conserve or to destroy.

That values have assumed such a high profile in professional, political and academic discourse may, to an extent, reflect a change in emphasis in the field of heritage. As suggested by Harrison (2010, 15), concern has arguably moved away from ‘doing’, to ‘thinking’. The occurrence of such a shift is beyond the scope of this paper, but is noteworthy nonetheless given the emergence of a values-centred theory. Other factors that have influenced what is seen to be an increase in the complexity of cultural heritage management include: an expansion of the concept and scope of heritage; the trend towards looking for market-based solutions; and the participation of new groups in decision-making over heritage (de la Torre, 2005). In relation to the first, the basic dynamics of the threefold enlargement in the dimensions of heritage were identified by Lowenthal (1998, 14) as essentially moving 10

‘from the elite and grand to the vernacular and every day; from the remote to the recent; and from the material to the intangible’. The limits of what is deemed worthy of interest, with specific reference to the built heritage, is also considered by Starn (2005, 75) to have stretched since the 1960s ‘from historical monuments and sites to “districts” and landscapes, from high to vernacular culture, from a distant to an instant past, from the West to the rest of the world’. Various international and local charters, guidelines and resolutions, have presaged or accompanied these expansions, and the Burra Charter in particular has been credited for the emergence of a values-based approach to the management of cultural heritage (Worthing and Bond, 2007). As a core constituent of wider cultural discourses within land-use planning and regeneration, the significance of these debates for theory and practice merit detailed critical attention.

Formulated in 1979 by the Australian Committee of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), the Burra Charter is more formally known as the Australia ICOMOS Charter for Places of Cultural Significance. Updated versions appeared in 1981, 1988, and, most recently, in 1999, along with accompanying guidelines. The stated intention of the Charter is to provide both guidance, as well as setting a standard of practice, for all those dealing with, and having an interest in, places of cultural significance in Australia (Australia ICOMOS, 1999). The 1979 version of the Charter defined the pivotal term cultural significance as meaning the aesthetic, historic, scientific or social values of a particular place for past, present and future generations. Significantly, spiritual value has since been incorporated into the 1999 version. The totality of potential values identified at a particular structure or place is effectively understood to coalesce under the concept of cultural significance. Notwithstanding the intent of the most recent permutation of the Burra Charter to incorporate a broader range of values and to engender greater community participation, its discursive construction is seen by some to undermine these attempts (Waterton et al., 2006).This does not, however, deflect from the contribution of the Charter to shaping contemporary attitudes and debates on heritage values.

The Burra Charter may have been influential in helping establish a contemporary focus on values, but it was not the earliest attempt at determining the values of cultural heritage. Rather, this endeavour has been attributed to Alois Riegl (Choay, 2001), former curator of the Museum of Decorative Arts in Vienna and President of the Committee of Historical Monuments, whose essay of 1903, entitled the Modern Cult of the Monument (Der Moderne 11

Denkmalkultus in the original German version), formed a preface to legislative proposals for historic monument protection within the former Austro-Hungarian Empire (Foster, 1982). Described by Glendinning (2003, 365) as the ‘greatest of all “conservation texts”’, in his essay Riegl attempted to separate and define the constituent values of monuments, grouping them according to whether they represented, according to him, present day or commemorative values. The structured opposition between these two groupings of values was sufficient, according to Choay (2001, 113), to reveal ‘the simultaneous and contradictory demands of the various values accumulated by the historical monument over the centuries’. Colquhoun (1982) also noted and reflected on Riegl’s recognition that age value ultimately depends on a contrast with new and modern artefacts, emphasising the slippery nature of what constitutes heritage value over time and space. However, as Pendlebury (2012) has asserted, at least in relation to England, while the relative importance of some values can change frequently over time, emphasis on the authenticity of fabric of older buildings has remained an extremely stable value.

Paradoxes and the potential for contestation between values was, therefore, explicit from the very beginning, even without factoring in the sort of economic values and pricing mechanisms that might now be assumed to conflict in contemporary thinking. The individual values isolated by Riegl – age, historical, commemorative, use and newness – constituted the first of what would subsequently become many value typologies. Chronologically the next significant typology is credited to Lipe (1984), who, focusing on values and meaning, sought to understand how cultural materials from the past function as resources in the present. Lipe’s (1984) value typology forms part of the foundation of a synthesis of some of the most prominent typologies as shown in Table 1.

INSERT TABLE 1 AROUND HERE

Space does not permit an explanation of how each of these values might be interpreted. Although certain commonalities exist between each of the typologies, it is notable that there are many contrasting values and different ways of expressing the same value. Each typology has emanated from a diversity of people and organisations, each approaching value from a different perspective whether, for example, art historical, archaeological, or cultural economic (or a combination thereof). It follows that the professional or disciplinary influences of the author or the mission of the authoring institution would have influenced 12

each perspective. Emphasis is also differentially placed across the range of typologies with several balancing sociocultural values with economic ones, as well as others largely ignoring the economic to focus instead on cultural or intangible values. Indeed, an expansion of the range of values appears to have occurred over time, with many values that may be considered intangible becoming more prominent in later typologies.

The reductionist potential of such typologies, and the argument that they can never provide an absolute definition of the values of a structure or place, is recognised (see also Avrami et al., 2000). Typologies are, nevertheless, seen as providing flexible frameworks broadly acknowledging the range of values that need to be taken into consideration in cultural heritage management (Worthing and Bond, 2007). In practice, however, the potential range of values is not just confined to those referenced, and other standalone values identified include ‘established value’ (ibid., 81); ‘discord value’ (Dolf–Bonekämper, 2008, 137); and ‘outstanding universal value’; the latter first coming to prominence in the UNESCO World Heritage Convention (1972). The identification of the various values of a structure or place of cultural significance is not an end in itself, but rather forms part of a process of values-based management. Cultural significance is here understood to be the summation of all the values attributed to a particular structure or place, be they aesthetic, social, economic, or other.

Assertions of the benefits of a values-based management approach

A values-based approach to the management of cultural heritage is predicated on the basic premise that in order to manage a particular structure or place, it is firstly necessary to identify why its heritage is important (Worthing and Bond, 2007). This approach is credited with holding a number of distinct advantages over relatively more traditional, expert-led and regulatory focused approaches that risk privileging a narrower range of values. Given the asserted benefits, this section critically examines the arguments that have been made in support of a values-based approach.

Firstly, a values-based approach is held to be more democratic and comprehensive as it facilitates a greater input from a broader range of stakeholders (Jameson, 2008). Traditional heritage management approaches, by contrast, are deemed to be the preserve of small groups of experts that are more concerned with the conservation of physical fabric, and issues related to questions of material authenticity and integrity (de la Torre, 2005). A values-based 13

approach is asserted to reflect the multivalent nature of heritage and the contingent manner with which it is judged by different people and organisations over time (Mason, 2006). A values-based approach is also attributed with having the capacity to improve community engagement in modern conservation practice, a feature which is acknowledged as being increasingly important (Mason, 2006). The ethos underpinning such arguments would appear to be broadly consistent with collaborative planning practices and in particular the case made for more inclusive decision-making frameworks (see, for example, Healey, 2003).

In addition to opening up heritage planning and management to a broader range of stakeholders, a values-based approach is also considered to facilitate an appreciation of a greater diversity of values, particularly contemporary values reflecting sustainability agendas and embracing economic, social and environmental attributes (Mason, 2008). Traditional value sets are changing to incorporate aesthetic, artistic, spiritual, and other intangible values. For Clark (2002), for example, traditional values, such as those expressed under the umbrella of architectural and historic interest, have usually derived their authority from academic scholarship, and are mostly hierarchical in nature, thereby offering a relatively narrow and limited range. Indeed, heritage is traditionally considered to have been the preserve of ‘the academic’, ‘the expert’, and ‘the elite’ (Waterton, 2008, 123). When dealing with multivalent places such as the World Heritage Site at Robben Island, South Africa, however, Clark (2002) argued that such hegemonic and physically oriented approaches do not work in practice. The prison buildings on the site, for example, do not hold much by way of architectural value but are nevertheless important due to their associations with significant individuals such as Nelson Mandela. A parallel Northern Ireland example would be the former Maze/Long Kesh prison, elements of which were afforded statutory protection in 2005, yet the site’s very name can provoke contestation on the island of Ireland. Neill (2006), Graham and McDowell (2007), and McDowell (2008) offer pertinent insights into some of the competing arguments over the future of this prison, which is the subject of a projected major investment regeneration programme. None of the structures on the site, which mostly date from the 1970s, could be considered to have traditional architectural or age value. The site is, however, of historical interest given its centrality to the period euphemistically known in Northern Ireland as ‘the Troubles’. The extent of that interest is clearly a matter for some debate, as are any proposals for its re-use and interpretation.

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It is evident that assertions of the qualitative superiority of values-based approaches are ultimately predicated on their ability to result in better decision-making and hence contribute to better outcomes for cultural heritage (Jameson, 2008; Mason, 2008; Worthing and Bond, 2007; Gibson and Pendlebury, 2009). In discussing the potential scope and scale of the operational utility of this approach Worthing and Bond (2007), for example, assert that a values-based approach can be applied to any kind of cultural heritage or built asset, ranging from individual structures to historic areas, with its scale of application also stretching from the sub-regional, to regional and even national levels. It is inferred that such flexibility of scope also applies to different aspects of the management process, whether involving matters of designation, and interpretation, or perhaps when dealing with statutory land-use planning applications, amongst a host of other development, policy- and decision-making activities. The next section critically discusses some of these claims and introduces specific types of values from the dark side

Revealing the dark side of heritage values

A values-based approach to cultural heritage has emerged against a backdrop of societal change and a concomitant shift in what is socially constructed as heritage. To what extent a values-based approach can diminish the potential for contestation within processes of managing cultural heritage, however, remains a matter for some debate. Individuals, groups and organisations will presumably continue to have differing and sometimes diametrically opposed views regardless of whether they are ultimately expressed as values or otherwise. Decisions concerning what to preserve, what to develop, what to destroy, and why, will continue to provoke questions about whose value, and at what cost (Palmer, 2009). For example, following de la Torre (2005), will contemporary values, or those measured in monetary terms, prove more ‘valuable’ than more traditional ones, such as historic and architectural interest? In addition, if understanding all the values of a particular structure or place is considered fundamental to a values-based approach, helping distinguish such approaches from more traditional ones (de la Torre, 2005), what about values which do not represent positive characteristics? As Dolf–Bonekämper (2008, 135), for example, asked: ‘How can anyone claim that cultural heritage only embodies positive historical, artistic and ethical values (truth, beauty and goodness), when heritage often comes down from periods of deep social and political conflict?’ Discord value, although offered by Dolf–Bonekämper in a potentially positive light, can nevertheless be construed as a ‘negative-value’, and hence of 15

the dark side. How can such negative type values be reconciled within decision-making processes, particularly in light of apparent community and political hostility as experienced in relation to the likes of the statutory protection of the Maze/Long Kesh prison site, for example? All values cannot all be protected simultaneously, and stark choices will often have to be made, including by the so-called elite in the face of opposition from local or community interests. Indeed, one might ask how else would such non-traditional heritage sites come to be conserved in places where the legacy of conflict continues to reverberate, unless professional expertise, lay-knowledge and democratic decision-making structures afford political spaces for debate and deliberation.

The suggested scale of operation of a values-based approach is potentially problematical, particularly when dealing with designatory and other such processes above the level of individual structures and sites. As Harrison (2010) observed, a dialectic relationship exists between protection of something as heritage and its perceived significance to society. The very act of protecting something in a positive way can have, at least conceptually, unforeseen consequences somewhere else. By implication, and following Gamboni (1997), by qualifying something as heritage necessarily implies disqualifying something else, thereby rendering the latter vulnerable to loss and destruction. This conundrum offers an interesting theoretical and methodological vista which leads to another sense in which the dark side of heritage values is revealed. The application of positive values to a particular structure or place could be seen to create ‘shadow values’ at other structures or places, akin to the ‘shadow effects’ recognised by Tunbridge and Ashworth (1996, 26). Specific criteria for qualification (and disqualification) of cultural heritage objects could, therefore, be studied concurrently, for example, with reference to the typologies of values elaborated in Table 1. By reversing a value typology, the absence, loss or denial of each of the values could be understood to have provided the necessary justification for the neglect or destruction of former and potential monuments (Gamboni, 1997). The articulation of negative, shadow and positive values could potentially offer a more complete picture if a values-based approach is being implemented on a larger geographical scale where the impact of such inevitably selective choices is more likely to be identifiable given the multiples of structure and place meaning involved.

The casting of negative- or shadow-values may not necessarily lead to active destruction but their identification certainly offers spaces for such values to be acknowledged in any decision-making activities. Indeed, Gamboni (1997) identified the application of ‘anti-values’ 16

to structures and places that are perceived to exhibit problems, with their consequential destruction not only seen as justifiable, but actively desirable. As noted by Harrison (2010), destructive acts associated with Iconoclasm are, after all, the result of alternative values being asserted. The redevelopment of large swaths of inner-cities in the name of slum clearance is an obvious case in point where such anti-values could, with hindsight, be seen to have been applied. The inversion of value typologies as suggested above, or the identification of antivalues, could be employed as a methodological tool in trying to understand and explain instances of destruction in the past. Rather than pointing towards cultural significance they would be more broadly concerned with the cultural insignificance of a lost place and hence provide a more nuanced view of why destruction may have occurred. This line of reasoning can also be applied to debates in the present. For example, the concept of rhetorical destruction, as elaborated by Cooper (2008), addresses the competition between discourses over the development of cultural heritage sites, with non-heritage orientated discourses seeking to ‘frame action’ at such sites. The discrediting of cultural heritage – and ultimately the loss of heritage during such argumentation – could similarly be conceptualised as the application of anti-values. Anti-values, therefore, represent an important type of value in their own right emanating from the dark side of the value spectrum. Their potential utility is derived not only from their contribution to understanding the past and the present, but also to ensuring that decision-making processes are more comprehensive, accountable and transparent. Conclusions

In contemporary cultural heritage planning and management attention to values and a valuesbased approach have become the sine qua non in deciding what and how to conserve. Given the significance of both physical and intangible heritage to regeneration and statutory planning and development processes, this paper has critically reviewed the principal ideas and discourses as these have practical implications for planning policy- and decision-making. In adopting a social constructionist perspective to examine a timeline of value typologies, the paper contributes to on-going debates about what constitutes cultural heritage over time.

In foregrounding the intrinsic link between conservation and destruction and advancing a fuller interpretation of dark side values, this paper also highlights the mediating role that planners can potentially play in revealing, acknowledging and articulating competing 17

discourses. Even if the ultimate decision is to redevelop (and thus demolish) a particular site, public recognition of alternative viewpoints is a fundamental right. Indeed, it can be argued that explicit acknowledgment of the conservation-destruction dichotomy may, through the discursive exchanges afforded by planning, ultimately limit the potentially normative aspects inherent in a positive values-based approach. By opening up discussions to a range of stakeholders and competing values, planning processes offer scope for problematising heritage values whilst also simultaneously offering deliberative space for mediation of contestation. Given statutory land-use planning’s core concern with the public interest and use and development of land it is interesting that much of the available literature is not land-use planning specific; indeed, this discussion has purposefully integrated perspectives from a range of complementary disciplinary perspectives, including art, archaeology and heritage management. Taken together, this inter-disciplinary perspective potentially offers insights for reflective practitioners working in cultural heritage conservation and land-use planning, as well as theorists concerned with explicating concepts of values. The contention is that the policy- and decision-making functions undertaken by planners in relation to cultural heritage necessitate a critical engagement with both the practical and theoretical implications of the adoption of a values-based approach. Moreover, consideration of certain normative aspects of a values-based approach resonate with debates over the role ascribed to power within landuse planning and asserted idealist convictions that planning systems and structures can somehow smooth over community divisions (Baum, 2005). More specifically, incorporation of a spectrum of values, including those from the dark side, reflects the competing rationalities of those deliberative approaches inspired by either Habermasian or Foucaultian perspectives on power, as well as those advocating a more collaborative form of land-use planning. Promotion of a values-based approach speaks directly to planning’s concerns with identification and inscription of meaning and adoption of appropriate decision-making procedures and techniques as evidenced, for instance, by Hajer’s (2005) account of rebuilding Ground Zero, a very particular case of addressing an act of destruction.

Finally, in common with those that have questioned some of the normative aspects of a collaborative approach to planning, the underlying theoretical basis for a values-based approach in cultural heritage management, at a range of geographical scales risks being problematical. First, there are inherent dangers in any approach which results in over18

privileging perceived positive values. Second, it should not be assumed that application of a values-based approach eliminates the continued potential for stakeholder or community contestation between values or diminishes the assumed status of those experts ‘doing the valuing’. Third, used instrumentally, a values-based approach risks over-shadowing – or ignoring - those values emanating from the dark side of a spectrum. Integrating dark side values into existing value typologies offers one way of securing a relatively more complete picture to inform cultural heritage planning and management.

In highlighting the evolution of concepts of heritage value over time, and in making the case for the explicit inclusion of dark side values, this paper contends that competing value claims must find legitimate articulation in planning policy- and decision-making. Dark side values will likely challenge the status quo, may represent non-positive characteristics of particular structures or sites, or embody contested – or indeed murky – symbolic values. Yet, dark side values are an inevitable constituent and outcome of decision-making processes involving cultural heritage identification and management. An assertion of anti-values, for example, as a specific type of dark side value related to active calls for the destruction of structures or sites deemed to be problematical may simply be one way in which a given majority assert their own value-base. Application of a values-based approach that recognises the dark side of heritage values would clearly benefit from empirical research. It is clear, however, that values-based approaches will somehow have to accommodate different views and different value-frames if they are to become more robust to scrutiny and more widely adopted within decision-making processes with respect to cultural heritage.

Notes 1. Flyvbjerg and Richardson’s (2002) analysis of planning theory has also informed the usage of the term dark side. Their search for the dark side of planning theory centred on the relative merits of Habermasian and Foucaultian inspired approaches, with the former being seen as overly normative and lacking in its understanding of how power shapes planning. The normative character of much of the literature dealing with a values-based approach resonates, to an extent, with thinking on communicative or Habermasian inspired planning.

Acknowledgements 19

An early version of this paper was presented at the International Academic Association on Planning, Law and Property Rights 6th Annual Conference in Belfast, February 2012. The authors would like to thank the anonymous referees for their insightful comments on the first draft of this paper.

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