Preservation or change: Learning from the inherited city evaluation of part I past: The inherited city

Abstract

The viewpoints of the City of Wrocław, together with those of UN Habitat, AESOP and the Wrocław University of Technology, as well as site visits, presentations by tutors and, most importantly, the work of young professionals on six selected sites contributed to the understanding of the ‘inherited city’, and animated the debate on the balance between heritage and development. Predictably, the findings were diverse but they established some common ground, if not of solutions then of pressing outstanding questions. Inevitably the original Athens Charter came under critique, but it was recognised that at the time modernism was built on needs of health, daylight, hygiene and safety, in reaction to bad urban conditions. Despite some post modern dissent and tutor inputs from many different standpoints, heritage was not discarded as redundant and was not considered to stand in the way of progress. Quite the reverse, in a turbulent world with massive migration and displaced people, uncertainty due to rapid change in the global economy and political landscapes, heritage had value and formed an important part of identities of cities and those who live in them.