Research Project: Change and values in the European town and city

Project briefing

• Status Completed
• Project duration September 2017 – September 2018
• Programme Urban development grants

The BMI and BBSR have issued this publication for the 2018 European Year of Cultural Heritage, making Germany’s experience and success of the 27 years of the Protection of the Urban Architectural Heritage Programme accessible beyond the borders of the Federal Republic of Germany. The German/English publication was presented at the Sharing Heritage – Sharing Values Cultural Heritage Summit in June 2018 in Berlin.

Background

The architectural heritage of European cities is of great importance for sustainable urban development. The Protection of the Urban Architectural Heritage Programme, with its integrated approach to support and action, is unique in Europe. For more than 27 years, it has been the leading programme in Germany for the forward-looking handling of architectural heritage within the framework of integrated urban development. It is therefore an indispensable component in the Urban Development Support scheme’s programme family. The programme was first launched in 1991 to save historic town centres in the new federal states in the east of Germany. Today, with the help of the programme, contemporary urbanism in the form of lively town city districts is being developed and shaped in 530 municipalities in both the east and the west of Germany. In addition to the preservation, further development and use of the building stock, there is also a focus on urban structure, green areas, water locations and public street spaces and squares. Another topic covered is the positive creative energy of the present day in the form of integrated new buildings and conscious breaks from and synergies with townscapes and cityscapes. The experience and success of the programme are presented here to a broad, international specialist public in this publication.

Objective

For the European Cultural Heritage Year 2018, the unique development history of the Protection of the Urban Architectural Heritage Programme will be presented to a curious national and international audience. The publication is aimed at representatives from the political world and administrative bodies at the European level as well as at experts in urban planning, heritage preservation, urban development and architectural culture who work on the sustainability of built heritage in historical town and city districts. The bilingual publication presents the programme’s approach to promotion and action based on the existing building stock as an instrument of integrated urban development. It features several specialist articles and is accompanied by pertinent examples of real-world practice. In addition to the genesis of the programme since 1991, both the success to date and the challenges that still remain in the new and the old federal states are discussed in further detail. The many people who have been involved in the programme carry an immeasurable wealth of experience and broad knowledge. In addition to current and past members of the Expert Group for Protection of Urban Architectural Heritage, this also includes other witnesses of various time periods, practitioners and experts who have supervised, shaped and brought the programme to life over the last two and a half decades. They all made contributions to the publication, in a range of different formats.

Contractor of the project was the complan Kommunalberatung GmbH, Potsdam.