Kulturarv utan Gränser
Svenska | English
Cultural environments
The main aim of our activities is to increase our partners’ ability to take care of their own cultural heritage.
“The quality of life of all people is dependent on our society’s physical accessibility.
Conservation, rehabilitation and culturally sensitive adaptive reuse of urban, rural and architectural heritage are also in accordance with the sustainable use of natural and human-made resources.”
This quotation from UN Istanbul Declaration on Human Settlements from 1996 provides a fine description of our aims in our work with cultural environments.
It is rather paradoxical that the greatest threats to the cultural environment are in fact cultural. Some have already been mentioned above. In addition, there is a general level of ignorance about historical and cultural values and there are a number of people in power who share this ignorance or are indifferent to these values. Sometimes they favour an ideology which is characterised by a strong faith in modernisation combined with contempt for older buildings, local traditions and materials. But the rural and urban landscapes are a result of many people’s common investments in infrastructure, agriculture and buildings. People and work have adapted to each other in a variety of complicated patterns – to a local culture conditioned by time and place, and whose development has been supported by a combination of the existent environment and inherited cultural skills used to manage it. However, it is also easy to harm such structures by the use of insensitive measures. Cultural Heritage without Borders' work should be considered within this context.
Cultural Heritage without Borders is guided by certain principles in its work of restoration:
· to create a long-term survival for the building
· to make the least possible change, only that which is for the moment obviously justifiable so as to prevent any damage to the building
· to use traditional and natural methods and materials since they are the most appropriate for the building in the long term
· to respect the alterations already done to the building and
· to ensure that whatever is done can be undone, if need be.
Below is listed information on the seminars, study visits, course and workshops that are related to our work with cultural environments and can be downloaded as pdf files:
Advisory project 2002
Workshop ‘Integrated Conservation’ 2002
Study visit 2001
Principles of restoration 2001
Swedish development cooperation with the focus on cultural heritage 2000
Assessment and analysis of restoration objects 2000
Renovation of older buildings with mortar 1999
Building restoration 1998
