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International Symposium

Sustainable Development of
Historical Cities in South-East Asia

Japan Consortium for International Cooperation in Cultural Heritage


International Symposium

Sustainable Development of
Historical Cities in South-East Asia

Japan Consortium for International Cooperation in Cultural Heritage


Note

This book is the proceedings of the Symposium “Sustainable Development of


Historical Cities in South-East Asia”, held on 7 October, 2017 by the Agency
for Cultural Affairs of Japan, the Japan Foundation Asia Center, and the Japan
Consortium for International Cooperation in Cultural Heritage ( JCIC-Heritage).
Contents of the proceedings were based on the transcription from recordings or the
papers prepared by the speakers, which were edited by the editors where appropriate.
The English translations of the parts originally spoken in Japanese and Vietnamese
were prepared under the responsibility of the editors. The images without citing
sources in each presentation are provided by speakers.
Contents

Opening Remarks: Look carefully for what is invisible. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4


Yoshiaki Ishizawa
(Chairperson, Japan Consortium for International Cooperation in Cultural Heritage /
Director, Sophia Asia Center for Research and Human Development)

Keynote Lectures
Caring of Our Common Home:
Historic Urban Landscape and Sustaining Developments in Asian Cities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Johannes Widodo (Associate Professor, National University of Singapore)

Lecture 1
Sustaining the Living Heritage in George Town, Challenges of a World Heritage Site. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Clement Liang (Council Member, Penang Heritage Trust)

Lecture 2
Conservation of Yangon’s Heritage as a Tool for Sustainable Development. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Moe Moe Lwin (Director /Vice Chairman, Yangon Heritage Trust)

Lecture 3
The Small City with Big Dreams:
The World Heritage City of Vigan and its Heritage-Driven Sustainable Development.. . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Eric B. Zerrudo
(Director, UST Graduate School - Center for Conservation of Cultural Property and Environment in the Tropics)
Eva Marie S. Medina (Former Mayor, the World Heritage City of Vigan)

Lecture 4
The Conflict Resolution between Hoi An Cultural Heritage Preservation and
the Development in Contemporary Society. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Nguyen Su (Former Chairman, Hoi An Municipal People’s Council)

Lecture 5
Sustainable Development of Hoi An Ancient Town and Japan’s International Cooperation. . . . . . . 62
Hiromichi Tomoda (Director, Showa Women’s University Institute of International Culture)

Discussion.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Closing Remarks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Kunikazu Ueno
(Professor, International Goodwill, Nara Women’s University/Director, the Subcommittee for Southeast and
South Asia of the Japan Consortium for International Cooperation in Cultural Heritage)
Remarks
Opening

Opening Remarks:
Look carefully for what is invisible
Yoshiaki Ishizawa
Chairperson, Japan Consortium for International Cooperation in Cultural Heritage /
Director, Sophia Asia Center for Research and Human Development

“Japan Consortium for International Cooperation in Cultural Heritage,” estab-


lished in 2006 through legislation by Diet members, is a organization under the
joint management of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Education,
Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. It aims at “the promotion of international
cooperation for protection of cultural heritage abroad.” We have been working as a
group of experts dealing with cultural heritage, world heritage, cultural assets etc.
worldwide for 10 years since its establishment.
This international symposium is the long-awaited event, through which our
Consortium raises a global request to challenge the historic-city planning in Southeast
Asia. We are honored that many experts from Southeast Asia with great careers and
experiences are assembling here.
They are Prof. Johannes Widodo from Singapore; Mr. Clement Liang from
George Town, Penang; and Ms. Moe Moe Lwin from Yangon, Myanmar. Prof. Eric
Zerrudo from the Philippines will give a lecture titled “The Small City with Big
4 Dreams,” which in a sense is related to the modern variation of creating a commu-
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

nity. As Lecture 4, Mr. Nguyen Su will talk about the City of Hoi An, a historic city,
which used to be called Faifo. This city, which I have visited myself many times, used
to have a Japan town. Dr. Hiromichi Tomoda, who is working as a member of Japan’s
international cooperation team for creating a community in Hoi An, will also talk
about this city. Finally yet importantly, we are honored to have Dr. Ota, a leading
expert in this field, as facilitator who will invite all panelists to touch upon various
topics.
Today, I would like to ask a favor of you.
It is a very simple one. I believe you all know “The Little Prince,” written by a
French author, Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900-1944). One scene of the story goes
as follows.
After a fox had bid goodbye to the Little Prince, this is what he said to him,
“Here is my secret. It is very simple: It is only with the heart one can see rightly;
what is essential is invisible to the eye.” When the Little Prince asked the fox
as to what he meant by the term “attachment” that he had used earlier, the fox
replied, “it means forming ties.” Then he went on to say, “if you and I were to
form ties with each other, we would become mutually indispensable.”
Here is why I have cited this part of the story. Considering the hundreds of years
of creating a community, there should be many things contained in it that are in-
visible to and beyond the understanding of those living in the modern times, such
as people who used to live there, their daily lives, customs, and behavioral criteria.
Hence, I would like to ask all the experts assembling here to engage in discussion
under the theme of “Look carefully for what is invisible.” What is invisible, I believe,
contains the most important value and should be handed down to future generations,
Remarks
Opening
who are to create a new community. Then, new generations will live in the new world
and develop new lives, which will lead to the 22nd century.
I would like to ask all of you to listen to everything the speakers have to say.
With this message, I would like to conclude my opening statement. I thank you for
your undivided attention.

Opening Remarks: Look carefully for what is invisible


keynote
lecture

Caring of Challenges in conserving urban heritage and


sustaining development in Asian Cities
Our Common Home: Rapid economic growth in Asia within the last
Historic Urban Landscape few decades has dramatically changed the course of
and Sustaining its architecture and urbanism. The acceleration of the
cultural and physical transformation process has led
Developments in to the fragmentation and destruction of old urban
Asian Cities 1
fabrics and resulted in a loss of identity and cultural
amnesia. Communities in historic neighborhood
Johannes Widodo and towns have been displaced, authentic culture has
Associate Professor, National University of Singapore 2
been commoditized, urban and natural environment
have been undergoing tremendous pressures.
The layers of urban history and shared heritages
that kept the shared memory of the whole commu-
nity for many generations and centuries has been
forgotten and, in many cases, gradually or completely
erased. Asian cities and architecture plunged into
identity crisis and had no clear direction, it is unfor-
tunate that the economic and technological progress
have driven us into unfriendly and unsustainable city
without identity and sense of community.
In this situation, we often asked ourselves whether
it is still possible to conserve our tangible and in-
tangible memories and identities, and at the same
6 time to allow economic growth and to accommo-
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

date contemporary necessities and modern lifestyles.


One important instruments to manage conservation
and development in a comprehensive and sustain-
able manner, after witnessing worldwide problems
on many World Heritage sites, in 2011 UNESCO
General Conference has recommended the adoption
of Heritage Urban Landscape (HUL) instrument by
all member states.
This keynote paper will underline the fundamental
principles of heritage conservation and management
in the process of managing changes, by focusing on
After studying Architectural Engineering at Parahyangan the human cultural sustainability and environmen-
Catholic University (Indonesia), earned a master s degree tal livability. The emphasis is on the importance of
in Architecture from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
(Belgium) and a PhD in the area of Architectural and Urban the community, ethics, empathy, advocacy, empower-
History at the University of Tokyo. In addition to his current ment, respect, and humility of conservation that are
position, also serves as Director of the Tun Tan Cheng Lock desperately needed today.
Centre for Asian Architectural and Urban Heritage in Melaka
(Malaysia) and Executive Editor of the Journal of Southeast
Asian Architecture (JSEAA) published by the Department Commoditization of
of Architecture of the National University of Singapore. He historic towns and buildings
also is a founding member of the Modern Asian Architecture
Network (mAAN) and the International Network of Tropical Preservation of heritage means preserving the in-
Architecture (iNTA) and is involved in numerous international tangible and tangible identity and characteristics of
activities to protect Asia s architectural heritage, including
a place and a community. Economic viability in con-
serving as a member of the jury of the UNESCO Asia-Pacific
Heritage Awards for Culture Heritage Conservation and servation of historic areas and buildings is absolutely
director of the ICOMOS National Committee of Singapore. necessary, but too much emphasis on economic gain
keynote
lecture
Fig. 1 Malacca (Malaysia)
Top‐down official World Heritage area vs Bottom‐up comprehensive inventory

Malacca, Malaysia
monorail
project

demolitions,
inappropriate uses
& constructions
gentrification

HISTORIC CORE

concrete boardwalk
along the riversides

new hotel

speculative developments
on reclaimed land
7

Historic Urban Landscape and Sustaining Developments in Asian Cities


Caring of Our Common Home:
mall on historic
Padang
dam

revolving
tower

Fig. 2

and profiteering may have negative effects. Tourism and consumerism have turned heritage into
Many countries and cities in Asia are trying hard a commodity for instant gratification, leading to
to draw mass tourism to boost the economy, through urban gentrification. Heritage sites have been turned
“city branding”. International recognition such as into “theme parks.”
UNESCO World Heritage status has been seek3, but These negative impacts of mass tourism have
then is hijacked by governments and investors as a caused irreversible damaged to heritage sites and
marketing tool or “branding” to attract more tourists buildings across the region. An adaptive re-use ap-
and investment for profit making. UNESCO World proach is used excessively and insensitively, imposing
Heritage status is often misunderstood by local gov- permanent damage or loss to the historical layers of
ernments as “recognition for success in attracting the buildings and sites. Façadism, the application of
tourists for the sake of getting more tourists,” as they inappropriate building materials and structures, im-
have forgotten the more fundamental responsibility proper usage, loss of traditional craftsmanship, and
to guard the cultural and physical integrity of the the consumerism and commoditization of cultures
place, which now belongs to the world community. and traditions are some examples of negative impacts
The rapid growth of budget airlines, especially across on heritage conservation.
East- and Southeast- Asia has also contributed tre- The official “historic core” and the “buffer zone”
mendously to the expansion of the tourism industry. as defined for the official heritage sites often doesn’t
keynote
lecture

match with the actual perception of significance by from the problems arising from mass tourism which
its own urban community, and have failed to main- threatened the social and cultural integrity of their
tain the integrity and to protect the entire corpus of tangible and intangible heritages4. Similarly, other
the “real” heritages belonging to and defined by the UNESCO World Heritage Sites, such as Lijiang
community. Weak heritage protection laws and reg- and Kaiping in China, the commoditization of her-
ulations (such as the transfer of development rights, itage, “Disney-sation,” and “cultural-themepark-isa-
land-rent control, zoning regulations, etc.), combined tion” have seriously damaged the cultural and social
with weak implementation and monitoring (such as authenticity of the place and the local community.
corruption, the lack of an effective monitoring sys- They have become a seriously endangered or dam-
tem, etc.), aggravated by greed and speculation, have aged World Heritage sites (Fig. 3, 4).
allowed inappropriate transformations and uncon- In Singapore, the Botanical Gardens has been
trolled development within the historic core and the recently included in the UNESCO World Heritage
buffer zones. The community is often powerless in list in July 2015. Right after the news broke, a private
defending their heritage and themselves (Fig. 1, 2). condominium development nearby the site put up a
UNESCO World Heritage status has be used (or big advertisement in the national newspaper’s prop-
abused) as “branding” to sell tangible and intangi- erty section with an attractive title: “Green living
ble heritage for mass consumption by the tourism overlooking a Unesco World Heritage Site”, saying
industry. Macau, Melaka, and Penang are suffering that it is the only freehold condominium overlooking

8
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

Lijiang (China)

Kaiping (China)

Fig. 3 Commoditization, Disney‐sation, Cultural Theme Park

Fig. 4 Macau (China)


keynote
lecture
into the World Heritage Site. The private and com- It was the place where the British surrendered to
mercial sectors are very quick in jumping and catch- the Japanese army on 15 February 1942. The fac-
ing the opportunity for cash (Fig. 5). tory building with Art Deco façade was Ford’s first
motor car assembly plant in Southeast Asia, built
Difficulties in dealing with the past memory in 1941. Before the war, the factory was used by the
layers in moving into the future British Royal Air Force to assemble fighter planes.
Another problem in conserving and sustaining the Subsequently the Japanese took over the factory and
heritage in Asia is pertaining to the painful memory used it as the first military headquarter, then it was
and deeper historical layers of the past due to colo- taken over by Nissan motor company to assemble
nization, decolonization, conflicts, and contestation military trucks and other vehicles for Japanese mil-
that still persisting until today. itary during the occupation. After the war the Ford
The World Heritage listing of Japan’s Meiji Motor Company resumed its operation from 1947
Industrial Revolution sites of Hashima Coal Mine until it was closed down in 1980 and subsequently
in 2015, for example, has triggered anger reac- abandoned. The building was gazetted as National
tions from Korea. The demolition of the Japanese Monument on the 64th anniversary of the surrender
Government-General Building and the reconstruc- of Singapore on 15 February 2006, and was turned
tion of the Gyeongbokgung complex in Seoul for the into an exhibition gallery and archival repository
commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the end of called “Memories at Old Ford Factory”. The only
the Second World War (1995) is another example of part that has been “preserved” (or technically “re-
difficulties in dealing with the past memory. stored”) from the original factory building is the Art
Another example from Singapore is the Old Ford Deco façade and the boardroom where the surrender
Motor Company5 in Upper Bukit Timah Road. took place. The rest are new structures, including a

Historic Urban Landscape and Sustaining Developments in Asian Cities


Caring of Our Common Home:

Fig. 5 Singapore Botanic Gardens (UNESCO WH – July 2015)

Fig. 6
keynote
lecture

large contemporary box structure near the road en- Learning from these cases, conservation some-
trance (Fig. 6). times is not a simple issue, because certain memory
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the fall may stay stronger and longer within the community
of Singapore, the gallery has been renovated and and the nation. The historical and ideological issues
reopened as “Syonan Gallery” on 15 February 2017, related to the narrative of heritage shall be consid-
but this name has triggered some protests and public ered very carefully, and often demolition can offer the
debate among Singaporean because of the painful best solution for the sake of the greater good.
memory from the Japanese occupation period when
the city was named “Syonan”. This sentiment might Balancing conservation and development:
cause a political problem, and the government made HUL and HIA instruments
a statement on 16 February 2017 that the full name One important instrument to manage conser-
of the gallery is actually “Syonan Gallery: War and vation and development in a comprehensive and
Its Legacies” and there was no intention to glorify sustainable manner, after witnessing worldwide
the Japanese occupation. The full name was installed problems on many World Heritage sites, UNESCO
quickly overnight, but the controversy over the word General Conference recommended Heritage Urban
“Syonan” continued in the mass-media. Finally, the Landscape (HUL) instrument in 2011 to all mem-
next day, on 17 September 2017, the government ber states. It is urging the member states and local
changed the name again into “Surviving the Japanese authorities to undertake comprehensive surveys and
Occupation: War and Its Legacies” by dropping com- mapping of the city’s natural, cultural and human
pletely the word “Syonan”. resources; to reach consensus using participatory

10
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

Fig. 7 Historic Urban Landscape (HUL)

Fig. 8 Kyoto City Landscape Policy – Forming Timeless Fig. 9 Heritage homeowner’s preservation manual
and Radiant Kyoto Landscape World Heritage City of Vigan Philippines
(http://whc.unesco.org/document/116517) (http://www.unescobkk.org/resources/e‐library/publications/
article/heritage‐homeowners‐preservation‐manual‐for‐the‐
world‐heritage‐site‐of‐vigan‐philippines‐publishe/)
keynote
lecture
planning and stakeholder consultations on what
values to protect for transmission to future gener-
ations and to determine the attributes that carry
these values; to assess vulnerability of these attributes
to socio-economic stresses and impacts of climate
change; to integrate urban heritage values and their
vulnerability status into a wider framework of city
development, which shall provide indications of areas
of heritage sensitivity that require careful attention
to planning, design and implementation of develop-
Fig. 10 Townscape Ordinance:
ment projects; to prioritize actions for conservation Community Planning Based on History
and development; and to establish the appropriate (Kawagoe City, Saitama Prefecture, Japan)
partnerships and local management frameworks for
each of the identified projects for conservation and for the next one hundred year and beyond. It is
development, as well as to develop mechanisms for manifested in the “Kyoto City Landscape Policy –
the coordination of the various activities between Forming Timeless and Radiant Kyoto Landscape”
different actors, both public and private (Fig. 7).6 urban conservation and urban planning policy based
Complimentary to the HUL, another important on the strategic coalition of all stake holders (Fig. 8).
instrument in managing the change and permanence The city of Vigan in the Philippines issued
(development and conservation) is the Heritage “Heritage homeowner’s preservation manual” for all
Impact Assessment (HIA), which is recommended homeowners in the UNESCO World Heritage site,
by ICOMOS7, ICCROM, and UNESCO. HIA is so the community and individual can take the re-
a tool to assess threats from various types of large sponsibility in keeping and maintaining their own
scale development activities to the heritage sites, such properties following a simple and clear guidelines
as infrastructure development, new buildings, urban (Fig. 9). 11

Historic Urban Landscape and Sustaining Developments in Asian Cities


Caring of Our Common Home:
renewal, change in land use, inappropriate tourism The community of city of Kawagoe in Saitama
activities, etc. Prefecture, Japan formed “Kawagoe Kura no Kai” as
a Non-Profit Organization in 1983, to campaign in
Keeping the significance, order to protect the townscape conservation and at
strengthening sense of belonging the same time revitalizing the commerce. The mem-
Japan is well known as the good keeper and main- bers comprise of Kawagoe Junior Chamber members,
tainer of its own natural and cultural heritages, and young shop-owners, researchers, and general pub-
therefore is able to preserve its unique identity and lic. In 1987 the Townscape Committee was formed
memory from very distance past till present and defi- through the enactment of the Townscape Ordinance
nitely into the future. For example, Kyoto has 17 for the town planning on voluntary basis, but recog-
UNESCO World Heritage sites/objects within the nized by the government, in 1987. The bottom-up
city area but it is rather difficult to find any signage efforts at the beginning, eventually would become
or logo of UNESCO WH in any of these site8. legal/official guidelines and regulations (Fig. 10).
While in other cities like Lijiang or Melaka, they In Lampang, Thailand, the restoration of Wat
are proudly displaying the logo and the words in Pongsanuk which won the UNESCO Asia Pacific
prominent places - like selling or promoting branded Awards for Cultural Heritage Merit Award in
commodities to tourists. In many cases Japan is not 2008, is another example of a successful commu-
falling into "cheap" commercialization of heritage nity-based conservation efforts. The steps include:
trap, but is able to keep their cultural and religious building community awareness, capacity, and enthu-
pride in dignified manner. Tourists, pilgrims and be- siasm; fund raising efforts; historical research and
lievers are flowing in and boosting the economy, but in depth documentations; and conservation inter-
not superseding the ritual and tradition. vention which include both experts and community
In 2007 the city of Kyoto came out with a holistic members in a joint effort to restore a modest temple
approach with a clear aim to keep Kyoto as Kyoto building into something of its original character. The
keynote
lecture

biggest achievement of this project is not only the bottom-up initiatives in conservation and preserva-
good restoration results, but most importantly is the tion should be created to include all stake holders.
restoration of the community’s capacity to sustain Recognitions, such as awards and heritage status,
their own heritage and increasing their economic should be aimed to generate greater impacts towards
prosperity at the same time (Fig. 11). a more sustainable and effective heritage policy, plan-
ning, and management of the community’s tangible
Holistic urban heritage conservation and and intangible cultural heritages, and not for the sake
sustainable development of marketing or branding for the sake of mass-tour-
We have a common responsibility to manage de- ism money.
velopments, and at the same time to preserve our nat- Differences, variations, and diversities are im-
ural environment and cultural heritage. Conservation, portant as cultural energy that generates dynamism
preservation, restoration, revitalization efforts of our and vitality to the city and its inhabitants should be
material and living heritages should be aimed to- well maintained and managed so the positive en-
wards social-cultural continuum or the “intangible ergy will not turn into negative or destructive forces.
permanence”. The community’s cultural continuum Empowering the community to enable them to re-
can be kept and nurtured by preserving the com- produce and to maintain their own tangible and in-
munity’s tangible and intangible cultural heritages tangible heritages is the only way to ensure long
through faithful and careful restoration, and through term sustainability. Appreciation and enjoyment of
sensitive and sensible care and interventions. The traditional values and products should be promoted
dying or missing traditional skills and craftsmanship through various ways, especially to the younger gen-
can be revived and restored through training and eration. Social media platforms might be useful for
education, and to be updated with the current tech- this effort.
nological advancement (Fig. 12). Conservation is management of change. Good
Middle ground to bridge the top-down policy and conservation management plan shall include these
12
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

Fig. 11 Community‐based conservation


(Wat Pongsanuk, Lampang (Thailand), 2008)

・“How to keep X as X for the next 100 years or more”


・Key elements:
1. Empowered Community
2. Sustainable Environment
3. Robust Infrastructure
4. Cultural Authenticity
5. Economic Viability
6. Social‐Cultural‐Physical Continuity
・Shall includes: Restoration Plan, Maintenance Plan, Development Plan
・Fundamental prerequisites of all stake‐holders and in all processes: Ethics, Consensus, Transparency, Accountability

Fig. 12 Good Conservation Management Plan


keynote
lecture
following key elements: empowered community, sus- of Singapore. Founder and executive member of mAAN
tainable environment, robust infrastructure, cultural (modern Asian Architecture Network), iNTA (International
Network for Tropical Architecture), DoCoMoMo Macau,
authenticity, economic viability, and social-cultural
and ICOMOS Singapore. Member of ICOMOS Scientific
continuum. The planning and implementation of the Committee and Shared Build Heritage Committee, associate
conservation and development plans shall be based member of Asian Academy for Heritage Management.
on ethics, consensus, transparency, and accountability. 3 For example on July 8, 2008, two historic cities of the straits
After all, heritage conservation is not about com- of Melaka (Malaysia), George Town and Melaka, were
designated UNESCO World Heritage Sites because of their
modification or branding, but about commitment,
outstanding universal values: (1) representing exceptional
responsibility, empathy, advocacy, empowerment, re- examples of multicultural trading towns in East and Southeast
spect, humility, and care, to protect our inheritance Asia through the blending of various cultures imprinted on
for the sake of the next generations. Our heritage the architecture and urban form, (2) a living testimony to the
– also our environment – is fragile. Therefore sustain- multi-cultural tangible and intangible heritage and tradition
of Asia and of the European colonial influences, as expressed
ing development while taking a good care of
in its religious buildings of different faiths, ethnic enclaves,
the heritage is like caring our own home and spoken dialects, festivities, dances, attire, art forms, cuisine,
family for posterity. and lifestyle, and (3) reflecting the blend of influences that
have resulted in a unique form of architecture, culture, and
References: cityscape that are incomparable elsewhere in East and South
・ “Asia Conserved”, Volume I and Volume II, Bangkok: Asia, especially through an exceptional range of shop-houses
UNESCO, 2007 and 2013. and townhouses from differing eras.
・ Ismail, Rahil, Shaw, Brian & Ooi Giok Ling (editors). 4 Even the historic “Padang Melaka” or “Padang Pahlawan”, a
“Southeast Asian Culture and Heritage in a Globalizing historic place in Melaka (Malaysia) where the Tunku Abdul
World – Diverging Identities in a Dynamic Region.” Surrey: Rahman, the founding father of Malaysia, on 20 February
Ashgate, 2009. 1956 made a formal announcement that British had agreed
・ UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban to grant independence to Malaysia on 31 August 1957, has
Landscape: http://whc.unesco.org/en/activities/638 been turned into a big shopping mall.
・ Guidance of Heritage Impact Assessments for Cultural 5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Ford_Motor_Factory 13
World Heritage Properties. Paris: ICOMOS, 2011, down- (accessed on 24 January 2017)

Historic Urban Landscape and Sustaining Developments in Asian Cities


Caring of Our Common Home:
loadable from http://www.icomos.org/world_heritage/HIA_ 6 See UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban
20110201.pdf Landscape – http://whc.unesco.org/en/activities/638
(accessed on 9 September 2016)
Notes: 7 See http://www.icomos.org/world_heritage/
1 This keynote paper is presented in the International HIA_20110201.pdf (accessed on 9 September 2016)
Symposium “Sustainable Development in Historical Cities 8 One of the oldest Shinto sanctuaries in Japan built around
of Southeast Asia”, organized by Japan Consortium for 6th century, Kamo-mioya-jinja (or popularly known as
International Cooperation in Cultural Heritage, National Shimogamo-jinja) in Kyoto is one of the historic places
Research Institute for Cultural Properties, Japan, in Tokyo, 9 inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage list, but no
October 2017. logo or sign of UNESCO WH here, only a simple “world
2 Associate Professor at the Department of Architecture, heritage” inscription in Japanese on a stone - barely visible -
School of Design and Environment, National University near one of many the entry points into the big site.
Lecture 1

Sustaining the Living I’d like to introduce my presentation. What I’m


going to present is about people, to continue from
Heritage in George Town, what Professor Widodo was telling us just now.
Challenges of a World Today, I’m going to touch on what happened to
Heritage Site George Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in-
scribed in the year 2008. If you know where George
Clement Liang Town – it is the capital city of the State of Penang,
Council Member, Penang Heritage Trust located in the north western part of Malaysia, per-
haps some of you have been there (Fig. 1).
If you look at the map (Fig. 1), it shows you quite
a big area that’s included under the World Heritage
site. We have a core zone and also a buffer zone as
designated by UNESCO. There are a total of 92
streets and roads in these two zones. It’s perhaps one
of the biggest UNESCO sites in Asian region.
Talking about the history of George Town, it was
set up more than 200 years ago by the British who
landed in Penang and set up George Town, named
after King George III.
The town has grown significantly in the beginning
as a trading port. If you look at the map, George
Town is located at the entrance of the Northern part
of the Straits of Malacca. Straits of Malacca today
still plays a very important role in the international
14 trades. Most of the ships from Asia to Europe or
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

Europe to Asia or to the Middle East have to use


and pass through the Straits of Malacca and very
strategically situated.
The British intended and planned George Town
to be their main trading port in Asia and it has
flourished since. Many ships came and the town de-
veloped from a small fishing village to a metropolitan
with many immigrants from many parts of the world.
Saying so, George Town also went through some
periods of decline especially in the past two decades.
A graduate of the University of New South Wales (Australia). Important functions like the port facility has moved
In addition to his current position, plays an active role in from the island to the mainland due to the limited
promoting preservation of heritage and heritage tourism land available in the city of George Town, and that
design with a number of NGOs and the tourism sections of
local governments, as a social history researcher. Focusing took away its traditional role as a regional free trad-
on ethnic minorities in particular, he studies communities ing port.
of Japanese immigrants in prewar Malaya and has been Then we started to see many other important
involved in the past in production of a television documentary
program on history addressing similar themes. Recently, functions like the central administrations, the whole-
he has lectured at universities across Asia on the subjects sale market also moved out of George Town, and
of local heritage sites and tourism and has participated in the banks, while they don’t really move out, but set
research conferences related to heritage preservation. He
also attended the 35th National Urban Development Seminar up many branches out of the old town where many
in Fukuoka in 2012 as a representative of Malaysia, delivering new suburbs were sprawling. As a result, the central
a lecture on issues in Penang after its addition to the World
capital role of George Town has somehow been di-
Heritage List, and is active in Indonesia, Taiwan, Singapore,
Thailand, and elsewhere in workshops on preserving heritage minished or minimized.
as well as sharing results of NGO activities. This is followed by the closing down of civic center,
Lecture 1
ジョージタウン
Fig. 1 George Town

the City Hall, Town Hall and the Municipal Council. like in Hong Kong and Singapore. Of course, some
One by one, they ceased to carry out full service to people wanted the city to model after the typi-
the public in the old city quarters. This is damaging cal American city urban setting, having high rise
to George Town as a leading capital city. On top of clustered in the town center, a symbol of pride and
that, we did not have good transportation system. progress. 15

Sustaining the Living Heritage in George Town, Challenges of a World Heritage Site
The buses were unreliable, and sometimes they didn’t Alas, in year 2008, George Town was inscribed as
come, and forced passengers to wait for long while. World Heritage Site. The conservationists fought for
This was aggravated by narrow streets and limited nearly 20 years to reach this stage. There are three cri-
parking spaces in George Town. As mentioned be- teria listed under Outstanding Universal Values that
fore, George Town was developed more than 200 George Town met. Two are related to architecture
years ago. The streets were narrow and designed for and multi-culturalism. The third one is the conserva-
horses, bull-carts and pedestrians in the beginning. tion of intangible living heritage. Unfortunately, this
Today, if you go to George Town, you’ll find car is the weakest part of the criteria that George Town
parking has become a big problem everywhere. The is trying to preserve. For architecture, the old build-
suburbs are growing, many townships have come up ings are now under close monitoring by the authority
all over the island, and people do not need to go to and quite well preserved, thanks to this UNESCO’s
George Town to do their shopping, banking and imposed condition which requires all the historic
even to visit the government offices. They are mostly buildings must be saved and protected in the world
out of the old town. heritage site. But preserving living intangible heri-
The other good thing that came or some said it’s tage is a big challenge.
a bad thing, is the inscription of the World Heritage Certainly, we are in a crisis mode. We don’t know
site of George Town. This is one of the strategies, and how to do it, how to protect the traditional skills, the
I would say by both government and the people of tradesmen or these people living in George Town,
Penang, as we wanted it. Seen as one way to save the many of them are old, aging people. If all these peo-
George Town from further decline and gentrification. ple are gone, will we lose one of the criteria of the
From the 1960s onwards, we saw this town not Outstanding Universal Values as stated in our in-
growing anymore and the people were moving out, scription to protect the living heritage?
and then demolition of many old historic buildings Walking in George Town nowadays, one can still
in town in favor of high-rise modern development, see the traditional shops selling incense, flowers,
Lecture 1

spices, and some old people repairing the furniture these traditional skilled people?
and making hats, however, it’s not a rosy picture (Fig. But don’t forget, without these traditional skills,
2). Because one thing is that many young people will we will not have our soul. They make up the soul of
not follow their parents’ step to continue this kind of the city. People who walk in the streets, buy things
old trade in the future. from them. This is how people interact with one an-
Fig. 3 is the last lantern man, a Chinese lantern other in a city. We do not like to see everyone goes
man, unfortunately, he died 2 years ago. Nowadays in to supermarkets for everything that they need with
Penang, we do not have any one who can make these little human interaction. Sad thing is, the numbers
big-size lanterns. The Chinese community likes to of traditional tradesmen are dwindling, one by one,
hang this kind of big lanterns with their family clan they are gone. Some retire, some died due to old age.
names written on it to signify the building is owned And for some, they just could not afford to pay the
by which family, but it is less commonly practiced sky rocketing rent.
now. If you want to order one, perhaps you have to I have to say one of the bad things about World
order from China, but the quality of the workman- Heritage Site is the consequence of increase in the
ship has never been good as compared to those made rent in the UNESCO site. Many shops are charging
from traditional tradesmen and lantern makers in much more – you have to pay 10 times more com-
George Town. pared to before the World Heritage listing. Many
So, this is a big challenge. We’re losing these tradesmen just left, they cannot afford it.
people. How are we going to solve this problem? So, who will help them? A good question. Okay.
Unfortunately, in Malaysia, our government is not Let me share something about this organization that
really putting efforts into cultural preservation, es- I belong to, Penang Heritage Trust, an NGO (Fig. 4).
pecially talking about the traditional skill and trades. No funding from the government and sometimes the
It’s like, let the market force decides. If people don’t authorities don’t like it, because it is run by a group of
want them, let them go. Now, we have many cheap conservationists who seem to make a lot of noise. But
16 products not Japan, but China – coming in, okay – we are there for a purpose. We were set up more than
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

Japan products used to be like that about 50, 60 years 30 years ago, by a group of people concerned with the
ago, but now we’re talking about China. They can destruction of heritage. In the beginning, our focus
mass produce things, and they are cheaper but the was on the building heritage.
quality may be compromised. Do we need to retain In Penang and in particular George Town, we used

Fig. 2 Endangered Living Heritage of George Town


Following the rent control repeal of 2000, George Town was being depleted of its living communities with hefty rent increase.
Due to gentrification the city was being depleted of its intangible treasures, the people that define the local inheritance.
Lecture 1
to have something like 14,000 old buildings, this rep- buildings or the living heritage. Here let me focus on
resented one of the largest in South East Asia, but the intangible aspect of the heritage. It is a wonderful
from the 1980s, the developers were coming in, they thing. Unlike Malacca, as Professor Widodo said,
said, “let’s turn George Town into another Hong which has turned it like a theme park. George Town
Kong, yes, high rise buildings in old town is good for may be moving to that direction, but we have a lot
you”. The government agreed and an urban renewal of concerned citizens that keep voicing out. We do
campaign was started by the government, a lot of old not like making George Town another Disneyland.
buildings disappeared since then. Neither do we want it to be a theme park. We want
If you go to George Town, you’ll be shocked by the city for the people of George Town. These are the
a huge tall building in the middle of the old town. people, if we can keep them and also continue with
It’s called Komtar, it has 68 floors, at that time, it their living style, though with some kind of adap-
was the tallest in SE Asia, when completed in 1988. tation with the modern times. But if you happen to
Of course, now no more in the world top ranking in come to George Town, you can feel it. People still live
height and it slipped into a long period of neglect in this city in their own traditional way.
and poor maintenance and lesser and lesser people We are not there to act for the tourists. Whether
went there for shopping. tourists are coming or not, it should not impact our
Then more people started to pay attention to their lifestyle. So, how to recognize what is called the in-
environment, how to preserve their heritage, either tangible heritage. First of all, we must do some work

17

Sustaining the Living Heritage in George Town, Challenges of a World Heritage Site
Established in 1986 by concerned citizens of Penang who
fear that because of modernisation, George Town will soon
devoid of its old heritage buildings & its living heritage.
They band together, coming from all walks of life, from a
wide range of expertise, including architects, authors, travel
Fig. 3 World Heritage listing for intangible heritage agents and also historians.
But the artisans are growing old and their numbers are
dwindling... Who will take their place? Fig. 4 Penang Heritage Trust (PHT)

- identify skills, particularly when under threat and enhance occupational viability
- acknowledge individual artisanship in the face of globalized uniformity
- protect the artisans
- acknowledge the challenge of mass need vs time-consuming artisanship

Fig. 5 To save the Intangible Heritage, we need to


Lecture 1

to identify the skill that is under threat. In Penang lazy or wanted a break, then you see those foreign
we have skilled workers who work in the traditional workers took over and started cooking for us, and the
food industry. Traditional food and Penang is what taste changed and is no longer authentic.
we are very proud of and it is commonly acknowl- One thing we learnt was the need to identify the
edged that we are the best and we have the best food skill, which is under threat.
in Malaysia. Then we identify the people, the local people, who
But, unfortunately, we’re seeing many of these are doing the work. The artisans, skill masters and
cooks or those who prepared the traditional food are individuals, and we are facing a lot of challenges from
aging and leaving the industry (Fig. 5). Some of their foreign imports but what can we do to protect the
children do not want to continue their fathers’ pro- skilled local people. We do recognize there are cheap
fession. Instead we are seeing some foreigners com- imports competing with our local products and dis-
ing in to cook our local food. Of course, you can tell placement by foreigners now.
the big difference. In the past decades, we have many So, what can we do about it? Do we need to do
foreign workers from other countries like Bangladesh something to protect or should we encourage our
coming to work in Penang, and you can find them local people to come up with systematic plans to
working in the kitchens. Sometimes the cooks got continue and to sustain our trades, our lifestyle, our
own traditional food and things like that. How do we
do that? The government has no solution. Perhaps
they are sitting there and waiting for some miracle
to happen.
It was a crucial time that we started to ponder we
had to do something. It should be from the people.
Penang is a good example of bottoms-up approach,
unlike Malacca which prefers using the top-down
18 approach. Whenever the Penang Government
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

wanted to start something, they would hear many


- There is a need to document the skills of the artisans other voices from the people. This proved to be very
- To fulfill the challenge of sustainability, apprenticeship has challenging and common in Penang. You can read
to be promoted the concerns and different opinions expressed in the
Fig. 6 Sustainability of our cultural heritage will be the newspapers every day, people are against the govern-
end product ment’s policies or the government is doing something

Dato Chuah Thean Teng Mohd Bahroodin Ahmad


(Batik Artist) Cultural Expert

‘..persons who embody or who have, in the highest degree, the skills & techniques necessary for the
production of certain aspects of penang culture, the life of our people & the continued existence of our
cultural heritage.’

A project by Penang Heritage Trust sponsored by HSBC Bank Bhd & Seven Terraces since 2005

Fig. 7 Intangible cultural assets Living heritage treasures of Penang awards 1


Lecture 1
Dato Lim Bian Yam Yeap Seong Kee Wan Dee Aroonratana
Chef Extraordinaire Kebaya Designer Menora / Cultural Expert

Kok Ah Wah Md Ooi Sew Kim Lee Khek Hock


Signboard Carver Hokkien Glove Puppet Theatre Traditional Lantern Maker
Fig. 8 Living heritage treasures of penang awards 2
19

Sustaining the Living Heritage in George Town, Challenges of a World Heritage Site
against the people’s will and etc. artisans, skilled people who can be musicians, en-
Anyway, we all wanted to work for the heritage of gravers, prominent chefs and likewise (Fig. 8). We
Penang and also preserving George Town’s unique recognized them by giving life-time awards. The idea
culture. We wanted to document the traditional skills started in the year 2005. Of course, we are not a
of the people soon, and let the trades to continue rich NGO, we have to get sponsorship from some
from there (Fig. 6). In future, even though the skilled big corporates which would like to help every year
artisans may be gone, we’ll have at least the paper through their CSR, e.g. the Community Service
documentation, videos and recordings of how the Responsibility projects. So we worked first of all,
things were prepared, and the steps that they went with HSBC Bank. They came up with the money
through. It’s important, first of all, to document the and we worked on the budget to allot eight Living
skills systematically and let people understand why Heritage awards at any time and each of them will
these skills are important to us and why they are receive every year, 2,000 ringgit. It was not much, but
unique to our own people. it is the way to encourage these people to continue
Sustainability of our cultural heritage should be their trades. They will continue to receive this money
one of the end results that we are looking at. We want until their death. So, it’s a lifetime reward.
to recognize the living heritage, through what we Besides the monetary rewards that are distributed
called Living Heritage Treasure Award. Surprisingly, annually, the awardees are presented with certificates
this has never been done by government, but by an and plaques in the recognition ceremony, and each
NGO like Penang Heritage Trust. I think this idea of them is given wide media publicity, usually during
of recognizing and awarding living heritage people the news conference when the awardee would re-
actually came from Japan in what they called Ningen ceive the award from VIPs, first began with the late
Kokuhō (Fig. 7). wife of the previous Prime Minister (Fig. 7). The
The award is to recognize those prominent awardees can feel proud of their achievements and
Lecture 1

their contributions to the local arts or the skills that no one knows how to continue on the trades. Though
they are contributing. we have the documentation, but we can never beat
Part of the work on living heritage preservation is having the so called skill master to teach the students
to carry out the full documentation of the awardees’ personally and to pass the skill on through the ap-
skills. There are students and researchers sitting with prenticeship program, which I will be introducing to
them for days or weeks to see how they do that work you in the next few slides.
and to document, including taking photos and de- These are the Living Heritage Treasures of Penang.
scribe the steps of their work. At any time a maximum of eight awardees, mainly
The next important thing is how to get the living because our budget raised is only for eight candidates.
heritage awardees to pass their skills the next gener- Of course we would like to have maybe 20 or 30, but
ation. We don’t want their skills to die with them or raising fund is a difficult task. Unless an awardee
has passed away and his or her position vacated, no
new awardee can be nominated. Just happened a few
• ‘Traditional trades’ – who will teach? who will learn?
months ago, we have one master chef who passed
Who wants to practice? Good, stable income? Penang
Apprenticeship Programme for Artisans (PAPA), to take away, so we’ll begin the process to select a new one.
the next step Fig. 8 master chef was very skillful in cooking the
• Local hawkers and retail – small start-up costs, but gray local Peranakan food. We had a Kebaya designer who
area between informal and illegal – need to legalize or made the traditional dress for the Peranakan ladies,
identify best practice?
we also have the story teller, Thai Menora dancer, the
• Festivals – rituals, festival routes, natural materials, com-
signboard carver, and then the puppeteer and also, of
munity relationships
course, this master lantern maker who, unfortunately
• Intangibles – traditional ways of doing business, business
networks, associations, supply chain etc. passed away a few years back (Fig. 8).
About traditional art and trades, well, how do we
Fig. 9 Living Heritage define, how to teach and how to continue on? Also,
20 how do we help the local craftsmen or the hawkers to
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

market their products? Can they pay affordable rent


and get a shop in the old town to continue their tra-
ditional trade? How do we tag along the traditional
skills network, can we also use that to help them to
grow, not just to preserve, but to grow their trades
(Fig. 9). These are the few important things that we
have to think about.
Another project that we started is called PAPA,
it stands for Penang Apprenticeship Programme for
Artisans (Fig. 10). It just started few years ago. This
is still at its infancy stage. We managed to attract ap-
prentices to join, but we also saw some young people
gave up easily and not interested to sustain the tradi-
tional trades. Perhaps out of 10, we get two or three
who continue on. But that is a good start. The local
people are trying hard to save the intangible heritage,
The Penang Heritage Trust has initiated PAPA, a pro-
while the authority has yet to come out with any
gramme that actively promotes intangible cultural heritage,
viewed as an integral part of the World Heritage Site’s uni- concrete actions at all.
versal values. This involves assisting artisans whose skills are PAPA is essentially to identify who are the tra-
considered traditional to our Penang multi-cultural heritage.
The programme also views promotion, product development
ditional skill artisans, assist them with the subsi-
and assistance with marketing as integral in achieving sus- dies and then help to recruit the students whom we
tainability of the skills. termed as apprentices and who show some interest to
Fig. 10 PHT-PAPA learn. We started to see apprentices coming in, some
(Penang Apprenticeship Programme for Artisans ) were single parents. They like to master a skill, maybe
Lecture 1
・ Signboard maker
・ Gold/Silversmith
・ Rattan weaver
・ Kebaya/Sulam dress
maker
・ Beaded shoes and
accessories
・ Songkok maker
・ Chinese Seal Engraver
・ Handmade shoes

Fig. 11 Confirmed Artisans

21

Sustaining the Living Heritage in George Town, Challenges of a World Heritage Site

Fig. 12 PAPA Project: Handmade Signboard


Apprentices at work and initial products of apprentices

to set up their own business later. their businesses, along come with a sense of pride.
Money subsidies are paid to both the teachers They are teaching not just for money, but to sustain
and the students to motivate them. One is the hon- a vital heritage.
orarium for the artisans to teach, and the other to Well, we want people to buy more of these tradi-
help the apprentices who come to attend, and we tional craft and handmade products using wood or
pay them the transportation fee. So, they get some cloth materials, to sell the products like these so that
reward for coming to learn from the artisan masters. the business can grow and to help the apprentices
The artisans get rewards and recognition to publicize to do the marketing to promote their products. We
Lecture 1

launched the PAPA program in 2009, where at first which is also another classic product from Penang’s
we chose the signboard engravers, in Japanese called Peranakan community, the ladies make their own
kanban-ya san. We managed to gain wide publicity shoes, using the glass beads. Fig. 11 is Songkok which
on the PAPA program in the public media. is a Muslim hat. We also have traditional makers in
After it started, and we selected eight different town. Chinese seal engraver, the Hanko, we have that
trades that we wanted to focus on; signboard makers, too. Shoes, yes, at one stage, Penang produced many
goldsmith, rattan weaver, Kebaya which is the tradi- handmade shoes, but the number is dwindling.
tional clothes of the women and the beaded shoes Fig. 12 is how we see the young people come

22
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

Fig. 13 PAPA Sulam (stitch work)


Demonstration by artisan and apprentices at work

Fig. 14 PAPA Project: Rattan Weaving


Learning in progress
Lecture 1
in. They are coming in to learn how to make this they started to pick up the skill and opened new
Kanban, the signboard. Usually, every signboard tells shops, there is new hope in this traditional trade.
the name of the owner of the house or the name of Some other trade requires high skill, and can be
the shop. Nowadays, most of these signboards are in tedious, like this sulam which is embroidery stitch
plastic or with neon lights which look like this but we work, which is very difficult to make but elegant
tell the shop owners, why not use back the old-style for the ladies to wear. However, we are seeing some
signboards, because in George Town, we’re enjoying renewed interest in the community, especially the
a retro boom which favors things of the past. young mothers and the single parents who come to
Many tourists come to Penang to enjoy the old learn about this skill. This kind of embroidery prod-
town atmosphere of the place. If we put back all these uct is actually in high demand, because it can only be
old signboards, they will give the owners a sense of handmade and cannot be mass produced.
pride in history of their shops and houses. Others see Fig. 13 shows the start of the work of the students,
you continuing your family tradition, your business we call it sulam. Besides this, we also have the rattan
has been running for 40 years, 50 years or so. Of makers (Fig. 14). Yes, we’re telling them don’t de-
course it’s good to have an old signboard, not made sign something too old fashioned. You can use your
of plastic, modern, neon light or that sort of material. own creativity to come out like modern lamp shapes
The sale of old style signboards becomes successful. using the rattan. These are the products that people,
We are seeing young students not only learning, whether tourists or from the modern family, they can

23

Sustaining the Living Heritage in George Town, Challenges of a World Heritage Site
Fig. 15 PAPA Project: Rattan Weaving
Products by apprentices in the first month

Fig. 16 PAPA Project : Nyonya Bead Work


Materials used and learning in progress
Lecture 1

Fig. 17 May Lim Siew Sing NYONYA Shoe Beader

24
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

Fig. 18 Sim Buck Teik Rattan Weaver

Fig. 19 Little Penang Street Market


Lecture 1
buy and place in their houses as decoration or for ・ Enhance old town liveability through better urban
daily uses. We like them to be creative in their prod- management & stimulate economic revitalization to
uct design as well using their traditional skill. And win back Penang residents and businesses

Fig. 15 is the products. You can see the baskets and ・ Support business development and cultural entrepre-
neurship, encourage heritage industry and employ-
also some other tools here, this one is used as scoop. ment for artisans.
Fig. 16 shows the first month of learning, and the ・ Encourage creative and cultural industries e.g. by
apprentices can come up with some good product. providing venues
This, as I mentioned, are the Nyonya beaded shoes. ・ Infrastructure for food industry, support policy on
hawkers
These are tedious work, especially when making the
・ “Preserving “old Penang”
shoe cover. Then, we also started the documentation.
Fig. 17 is the jobs we are focusing there, documenta- Fig. 20 Bring Back the Residents to Old Town
tion of this Nyonya shoes maker, where it shows how
the shoes were made done, etc. We get it published and the place has become quiet at night. Also, the
with some subsidies from government agencies. The tourists are coming in big numbers and they also
other trades like rattan makers also went through the cause some disturbances onto our local community,
same thing (Fig. 18). but we have to work out an appropriate solution next
Besides, we also help the apprentices to promote time. As for now, we truly want the people to come
their products in the Sunday markets. You can see back to the old town (Fig. 20).
their products when you go shopping in Penang (Fig. We want more people to live in the town to sup-
19), you don’t have to buy all the made in China port the business there, and not just a tourist place
products, you can have traditional Penang-made like a museum. Penang can be creative. While main-
handicraft, and this is what the tourists like. taining its old traditional charm, we can have creative
So, that is what our major hope is. George Town products using our traditional skill. It’s very import-
has suffered big outflow of population or gentrifica- ant to preserve old Penang and yet having these
tion in recent decades. In the old town area, we used people coming back to stay in George Town. 25

Sustaining the Living Heritage in George Town, Challenges of a World Heritage Site
to have 50,000 people living there but nowadays, the I would like to say thank you very much.
number has dropped to approximately 9,000 people, Terima Kasih. Arigato Gozaimashita.
Lecture 2

Conservation of This chapter was based on the transcription from recording,


which was edited by the editor where appropriate.
Yangon’s Heritage as
a Tool for Sustainable Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I would like
Development to thank sincere – I’d like to say my sincere gratitude
to the organizer, JCIC-Heritage and the supporting
Moe Moe Lwin partners. I will be mostly talking about Yangon, con-
Director/ Vice Chairman, Yangon Heritage Trust servation of its city heritage as a tool to sustainable
development. First, I will be speaking briefly on the
history of the city, and then on our efforts to save
its heritage towards a better urban environment of
Yangon.

I am mostly sharing what we are doing accord-


ing to our experience. To start with Yangon’s history,
Yangon as a city is not that long as a modern city, but
it’s a very small settlement and among rulers in the
past, but Shwedagon has been there for many years,
hundreds of years (Fig. 1).
In 1755, the Myanmar King from the Upper
Myanmar conquered the lower part of Burma from
the Mon Rulers and Yangon was assigned as a port,
the small outpost town near Shwedagon. Then, in
1852, British annexation to the lower Myanmar and
26 Yangon was designed to be a capital of Myanmar,
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

until Myanmar gained independence in 1948 (Fig. 2).


Then, I am dividing those periods into – because
of many political changes. Myanmar enjoyed a little
bit of democratic people government between 1948
and 1962. Then from 1962 until 2010, we were under
mainly another military rule. In 2006, the military
government decided to move the capital 200 miles
away from Yangon and Yangon has been left as only
the economic major center, but not as a government
capital.
After studying Architecture and Settlement Planning and
Design at the Rangoon Institute of Technology (Myanmar),
earned a master s degree in Urban Planning from the Asian
Institute of Technology (Bangkok, Thailand). Later served
as Program Officer in the AIT s Project Architect Office,
National Consultant for the Human Development Index (HDIS)
Project of the United Nations Development Programme
and the United Nations Office for Project Services, and
Partner Architect with the architectural firm of Living Design
Architects & Planners, before assuming her current position
in 2012. She is a founding and managing member of the
Yangon Heritage Trust, established in 2012 with like-minded
professionals and members of the business community
aiming to protect and promote Yangon s urban architecture
and cultural heritage. Her other roles include Vice President
of the Association of Myanmar Architects and Executive
Member of the Myanmar Architects Council, and she
lectures often on sustainable urban development planning
and on utilization of cultural heritage. Fig. 1 Shwedagon
Lecture 2
So, the government-owned buildings are left 4), the British developed along the port – along the
empty since then. In 2011, the political movement, river, because it’s aiming to become a major port city
political changes happened, and then that becomes in Southeast Asia. Its lay on the grid is similar to like
elected democratic government. Then, we are just New York or other cities.
experiencing the more democracy development. So, But Shwedagon being here, it’s designed to pro-
this is from the custom outpost to become a major tect, because its location is on the hill and that is
port of Yangon. strategic for the British military reason(Fig. 5).
So Yangon, Fig. 3 is the early Yangon map before So the character defining Yangon is Yangon
British occupation, so that this is really a small scat- mainly as a port city, with a British occupation. It’s
tered settlement on a swampy land. This covered only created as an important port city and now once sec-
a few blocks of the existing Yangon, a few blocks ond to New York, the busiest immigration port, es-
means about 3,000 feet square. So when Yangon was pecially in 1920.
laid out and planned as a modern city in 1852 (Fig. Until the war came in 1941, it enjoyed a lot of

Under Mon Under Under British after independence


Rulers Burmese
1755

1852

1948

1962

1990

2011
Kingdom

27

Conservation of Yangon s Heritage as a Tool for Sustainable Development


Fig. 2 Yangon in history

Fig. 3 Early Yangon map


Before British annexed Lower Myanmar in 1852. It was a scattered settlement
by river confluence.
Lecture 2

Fig. 4 Yangon in 1914


In 1852 the city was planned in grid and built on reclaimed land along the river for about
36,000 population. It grew fast to become city of nearly 300,000 population in 1912.

28
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

Fig. 5 Shwedagon has always been the dominating over Fig. 6 Downtown Yangon with the view towards Shweda-
the city gon Pagoda in the north in 1930s.

a b

Fig. 7 a) Yangon still has unique collection of late 19th century and early 20th century architecture. These are rare assets. b)
Many of these institutional buildings has been left intact as the country was isolated and frozen from development during
1962-1988.
Lecture 2
development, and many of the first batch of the co- The other character of Yangon is diversity. It’s like
lonial building has been demolished to replace with other city like Singapore or Penang that my previous
the more modernized building in 1920s, when the speaker has talked about. That many religious build-
city enjoyed highest economic development, which ings are there, staying together side by side. There is
slowed down in 1930 with the depression. no problem or there is no surprise that Shia Muslim
The Shwedagon has always been dominating and Sunni Muslim Mosques are sitting side by side.
over the city (Fig. 6). The Downtown Yangon with a The Sule Pagoda in the downtown is next to this
view towards Shwedagon Pagoda is always import- huge Sunni heritage Mosque. So, living harmoni-
ant and until now, because for many of the Yangon ously in a diverse culture is a pride of the city. Over
people, viewing and praying and worshipping the 90 significant heritage religious sites are located in
Shwedagon from almost everywhere throughout the the Yangon City.
city is very important in the daily life. So Yangon also faced destruction during the war
This kind of step is that was built in 1895 as an (Fig. 9), but fortunately, many significant buildings,
important administrative seat for the British ruler, but institutional buildings survived until today. But many
it’s one of the rare assets (Fig. 7). When Myanmar fell residential parts have been damaged, blocked or the
under the military government, and first the socialist chunk of the lands has been damaged. The port is
government, the development has been very slowed totally damaged during the war.
down, and it has isolated itself from the world. So,
the development opportunities were not there. That So here is the growth and change of Yangon over
is also fortunate in saving the city’s past in other way. time (Fig. 10), Yangon as a major center attract-
ing population across the country, of course, this is
Yangon is not only for the buildings or the built a major administrative seat and a major economic
structures. It is also the places that linked to the center as well as a major educational center. So, peo-
modern history of the political struggles, interna- ple for employing to getting the jobs or wonder-
tionally and nationally famous figures and businesses ing to become an artist or a job for the children 29

Conservation of Yangon s Heritage as a Tool for Sustainable Development


until recently because the city squares or the heritage to be well educated, they have to send to Yangon.
buildings, which are overwhelming the Downtown So, Yangon is becoming bigger and bigger. So now,
Yangon has been a site for the democratic movement present Yangon has nearly 6 million of people. Every
until recently (Fig. 8). day, there are migrants coming in and the housing,

Fig. 8 Yangon has many heritage places that are linked to modern history of political struggles,
internationally and nationally famous figures and businesses.
Lecture 2

and that squatters’ problem is a major task for the has started the project supported by Japanese inves-
government to tackle. So, the population of Yangon tors and 25 km down the stream (Fig. 12). So when
will reach at 10 million by 2040 (Fig. 11). So what all these port facilities will be moved out of the city,
the government would be preparing to accommodate so what will happen to the downtown port facilities
all these expected population, there are many urban is also to be found out.
policies that are yet to be implemented.
So after more than 150 years of its founding, So, these are the mostly I will be talking about
Yangon remains the major port city, but Thilawa Port the built heritage. So Shwedagon as a most signifi-
has been another choice. The previous government cant and a sacred heritage of all, as well as the many

30
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

Fig. 9 Yangon during the War


Yangon experienced substantial damages during the Second World War. Luckily
hundreds of residential and institutional buildings survived till today.

Fig. 10 Growth and change of Yangon overtime Fig. 11 Greater Yangon received more than 100,000 per-
Yangon is major urban center attracting population across sons moved into the city every year recently. The popu-
the country. Increase in migrated population accelerated lation of Yangon is expected to reach 10 million by 2040
past few decades. that doubling the current figure.
Lecture 2
religious buildings, because when Shwedagon has After the independence, there were many invest-
been there for hundreds of years, the monasteries or ments to the democracy government in the post-in-
the other religious structures were there. Of course, dependence. So, the really 20th century modern
when the modern city was planned, then the modern architecture was introduced, and there are a few sig-
technique and modern architecture has been intro- nificant architectural buildings left in the country.
duced with the British style, some combination of Of course, not only the built environment, for urban
Indian or the Chinese migrants, so that’s a lot of environment it’s like the big lakes are also very im-
interesting built environment together with using the portant and how people are living in daily lives is
local materials like teak and others (Fig. 13). also very important, and it’s dynamic and it’s ever

Fig. 12 Yangon remains the major port city of the country. As Thilawa new port was
established 25km down the existing port, future of yet active downtown port facilities
to be decided.
31

Conservation of Yangon s Heritage as a Tool for Sustainable Development

Fig. 13 No other cities in Southeast Asia can be compared to Yangon in possessing ensemble of 19th and
20th century architectural assets.
photo: CDIA/YCDC/YHT project, 2014
Lecture 2

growing (Fig. 14). Mughal style. Then, Fig. 15c is a significant monas-
So, this is showing another diversity of the cul- tery, but you will see that the architecture is all mixed.
ture in Yangon (Fig. 15). So you will see Fig. 15a Then Fig. 15b is the second last King, who’s mar-
that is the Chinese shop house, but with a little bit ried, who donated the monastery in Yangon, which is
of a combination of the arches that it looks like the now more than 150 years, but it’s all decorated with

32
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

Fig. 14 Other attributes that define Yangon’s distinct character include post-war modern buildings,
its vast green and blue features, dynamic and vibrant lives of its residents.

a b

Fig. 15 Cultural diversity in Yangon can clearly be seen in its architecture.


Lecture 2
the lanterns and everything coming from England. a view towards the east of the downtown, and then
Fig. 15d is a very famous Catholic Cathedral, but Fig. 19 is now the view towards the same site.
all these churchgoers are Indian community. So, the In the right center or middle of the Yangon, you
color is quite vibrant and interesting. can see where the cultural diversity, Sule Pagoda, and
So, Fig. 16 is Yangon in 1930 view. So the most next to which is the famous Sunni Muslim Mosque,
dominating is after Shwedagon, the Cathedral that there are also Baptist Church and City Hall. Then
I just talked about, but now you see the Shwedagon here was the row of cinemas that we all residents
and then the Cathedral has been overwhelmed with loved to go during a few decades ago, but it was to-
all these built up and high structures developed tally demolished to give the way to be developed by
during the past two decades (Fig. 17). So Fig. 18 is the Shangri-La Hotel Groups, to become a 22 storey.
So, this is where the people feel that the Heritage
and the city is changing under the authoritarian rules
without caring the opinion of the public and the care
about the opinions.
But still some of the streets are left as original. So,
these are the causes which are threatening the her-
itage. It’s excessive demolishing and replacing with

Fig. 16 Yangon in 1930s

33

Conservation of Yangon s Heritage as a Tool for Sustainable Development


Fig. 19 Yangon in 2014

Fig. 17 Yangon in 2014

Fig. 20 Loss of built heritage characters


Due mainly to development pressure, lack of policy for ur-
ban conservation, excessive demolition, weak regulations,
complexed ownership status, unclear land management
Fig. 18 Yangon in 1930s and unused properties.
Lecture 2

the higher apartment buildings. Then the lack of and revising of municipal bylaws is very important,
maintenance and the lack of funds, or the complex- where to allow and where not to allow. It is still very
ity of ownership, who would maintain, who would difficult, because especially for the private-owned
repair, that’s a problem. Then, Fig. 20 was an 1890 land, the government has a little bit of influence on
Dijuma used mall used shopping mall, but now the what private would like to do. So, for example, this
business used everyone, they do whatever they like is 1980.
to do under the same building and then under-used Before 1988, there were municipal bylaws, we still
building, because when the government moved to continue with the British bylaws, so all these floor
Naypyidaw, then many institutional buildings were height and then the building height were kind of
left empty. limited in the City Center, but after 1990s, because
Then, the ecosystem development, and then no at that time, the military government wanted to de-
height control at all. Then, the threatening of the de- velop, and they felt that all these old buildings are the
velopment pressure. So what we need is the reviewing heritage of colonialism, and we don’t have to keep it
anymore and they were like to allow more develop-
ment and to accommodate the city population more
easily. So, the height is not limited at all. So, there
are many inappropriate replacements like this across
the city.
Of course, the property-led development, it only
depends on the price and on the contractor and what
like Professor Widodo said is corruption and those
resulted in a very underqualified development. So
the buildings are under-standard, and after 6 years of
its construction, it all looked like the same as those
34 100-years-old heritage building.
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

So, Fig. 21 is what’s happening now in the city.


This was the last year list of proposed projects over
Fig. 21 Proposed High Rise Projects in Yangon 12-storey buildings across the city. So mostly, it’s
proposed around the Shwedagon Pagoda, around the
Inya Lake and around the Kandawgyi, where they
can have a better view. So altogether, 160 and some
are even proposing over 30 stories. So this is the same
area, where we will consider as a historic city, because
it’s the origin of where Yangon was started.
So, Fig. 22 is the development pattern. It already
has been in place near Kandawgyi and then there
is no clear legal process and because of the weak

Yangon heritage trust is an independent centre of excellence


working to promote and integrate Yangon’s unique heritage
into a 21st century vision of Yangon as one of Asia’s most
liveable cities

・Advocacy and Outreach


・Public Policy Development
・Building Conservation
・Capacity Building
Fig. 22 Lack of clear legal processes and weak regulations ・Research and Information
in urban development will create unsolvable urban prob-
lems in future. Fig. 23 Our vision
Lecture 2
regulations in urban development. ・ Working closely with Yangon Regional Government and
So, the burden and the consequence of this high YCDC and other ministries and departments (esp. Min-
density and uncontrolled development will be suffer- istry of Culture and Ministry of Construction)
ing the city in the future as well before we can solve ・ Talk at Seminar, Workshops organized by government
any existing problems and the lack of the protected institutions, professional organizations, universities,
school children)
view of the Shwedagon, because everyone wants to
・ Media
have a sight of the Shwedagon from their windows, ・ Social media networks
so every development is competing with each other
to be higher around Shwedagon. But the municipal ・ Exhibitions (Global City, photos, street festivals etc.)
already have that kind of rules, they have regulated ・ VIP visit tours
in the past decade, but the thing is that enforcement ・ Walking free tour for locals
and not effective at all in application and plus some ・ photo competitions

kind of corruption. Some maybe simply not aware Fig. 24 Advocacy Works
of that will be threatening to our heritage urban
landscape. to showcase that the historic Yangon revitalization
This was municipal, I would say so-called pro- needs that repairing and not to damage farther and
tected area, but even in that area, it is not effec- the capacity building to disseminate the skills and
tively protecting the height of the buildings and the awareness. So advocacy, we work closely with the
development. Yangon Regional Government, YCDC that is a
council, municipal council and other ministries and
So, in Yangon, what is different from the other developments, mainly like the Ministry of Culture
cities is the downtown that the historic Yangon and and Ministry of Construction (Fig. 24).
the area is still many people are living. It is not that
the people move out as in the Penang state, because We started to advice on the other regional govern-
we are just trying to develop. Then, these are other ments, because of what we are working in the other 35

Conservation of Yangon s Heritage as a Tool for Sustainable Development


challenges as facing in Yangon. region and states, governments are also asking the
So, what we believe a conservation process should things related to the conservation and development
be closely integrated with the long-term planning in their old regions and states and collaboration with
for the future of the city as well as the many sev- local and national organizations. Then, we talk a lot
eral changes and developments happening on a daily like here, and through media, social media and social
basis. networks, and then the other kind of like the plaques
and the exhibitions and the city tours and the com-
So, in that time, when the democratic government munity engagement projects, that’s to see how the
was in power in 2011, we started our organization in community responds to the heritage environment.
2012, in order to promote and protect the urban her- So what we’re trying to mainly say is to people to
itage to integrate into 21st century vision of Yangon understand what is urban heritage, and why it’s needs
as one of the Asia’s most livable cities. So, these to be important in the urban development policy,
are the main tasks we have. We are a mainly advo- why they need to conserve and then what actions
cacy group to focus on saving heritage. So we were are threatening. Because sometimes they don’t say by
founded as a non-profit, non-government NGO, and allowing the new development project next to it will
the things what we are working on are as listed harm the heritage landscape. What are the right con-
(Fig. 23). So, we’re trying to outreach the people for servation actions? It’s also the building techniques as
advocacy. So we have a different way of advocating well as the overall planning control.
to the government, to the professionals, to the gen- Fig. 25, 26 are some of our work, meetings with
eral public, to the management and the government the government and the advocacy works are related.
staff level. Then, those are related things that we’re For example, this one is one other NGO, the small
doing and we’re also trying to advice on the policy NGO, has been initiated on an upgrading of the back
development related to the heritage conservation as lanes, which are mostly filled with the very filthy gar-
well as the future development of the city and trying bage for a long time.
Fig. 25

Fig. 26
36
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia
Lecture 2
Lecture 2
So, this is the Blue Plaques installation in our ad-
vocacy projects to market Yangon has the uniqueness
to become one of the major great cities in Asia.
With the tourism and that has pushed the poten-
tial to redevelop, so Fig. 27 is the Downtown Yangon
as well as the Shwedagon. This is important that the
green area and its historic city should be maintained.
It is not to preserve, but to carefully see the future
development of it to maintain its existing assets. The
pink color may be a more new development. So, now
the new government has more emphasized on this
area for the higher buildings development.
So our topic, our stress is not on a building, indi-
vidual building renovation, but for the more livable
Yangon. So, legal protection to stop the demolishing
and now somehow the municipal government has re- Fig. 27 Yangon at tipping point
ferred to us for any of the heritage-related properties, Having valuable assets of cultural heritage, having river
so the character of the streets, blocks and a part of frontage of about 25 km within the historic city alone,
having circular rail that reaches most part of the city, by
the city rather than the first-class conservation of in-
systematically planning the strengths of Yangon, the city’s
dividual landmark buildings. Then, we can carry the urban heritage will not be lost, while more opportunities
city’s identity and souls and this is what we have to are coming up.
suggest to the government. So according to our sur-
vey and things, these are the potential conservation We published last year, the Yangon Heritage
areas, where the heritage characters are there. Fig. 28 Strategy to advise to the new government what the
is what we are urging the government to define as a selected area improvement would bring in the more 37

Conservation of Yangon s Heritage as a Tool for Sustainable Development


conservation area, where the new regulations should economic and the cultural opportunities, so the green
be in place, especially height control. Of course, there area around the Shwedagon Pagoda and the conser-
are many things that are already kind of destructing vation area to be recognized in the downtown with a
the landscape, but we’ll try what it remains, so more special significant character area as well as the public
than 2,000 heritage buildings in the area. realm development (Fig. 29).

Fig. 28 Proposed Heritage Designations


The Downtown Conservation Area covers approximately 2 km2. It contains
almost 3,000 buildings, of which 40% were built before 1945.
Lecture 2

Fig. 29 Proposed Ideas on conserving historic urban heritage sites and their envi-
ronments, including tourism.

1) Public transportation

2) Regulatory control and legal process in urban


development

3) Traffic

4) Pedestrian
38
5) Flooding
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

6) Utilities

Fig. 32 6 Most listed urban challenges


Fig. 30 Having many unused or under-used State-owned
or quasi-State-owned buildings, reused plan must be stra- So, having unused state-owned projects to be as-
tegically prepared sessable for the public and the more cultural facilities
YHT encourages to convert into public use for some of
to be converted from these old buildings. So the new
State-owned buildings and allow public access to part of
renovated buildings so that public will better aware with government has started this building to become a
valuable urban environment national library, and we are helping in the technical
advices (Fig. 30).
So, there are types of heritage buildings according
A- Government-owned landmark buildings that will con-
tinue to original use
to ownership and use. So, the government-owned, so
B- Government-owned buildings that can be changed into there are six different kind of – some can be totally
other public use government projects, some can be a donation or the
C- Government-owned buildings that can be leased out to funders’ investment, and some can be changed into
private business
D- Partially owned by Government ministries
the public – private businesses (Fig. 31). Then, some
E- Privately or organization or Trustees owned buildings of that taxation or the funding arrangement could
F- Private residences fund the private residents’ improvement and pub-
lic realm improvement. So, we also have prepared
Challenges in revitalizing downtown heritage area include
policy and legal solution to complexity of ownership status, like a PPP schemes to pull all together, especially
car parking solution, financial arrangement, infrastructure government-owned building to become one of the
investment and public realm improvement schemes. The YCDC has also paid attention to the
Fig. 31 Types of heritage buildings according to owner- public space, but there was a mismanagement in the
ship and use past, so very, very few places left for the public open
Lecture 2
Fig. 33 As there are less and less land available to be used Fig. 34 Downtown waterfront has a great potential to be-
for strengthening public utilities, services and providing come a major public recreation place if port functions are
public spaces, only two areas in downtown left to take to be reduced.
advantages of Central Railway Station owned 63 acres of
land at the center of the historic city.

39

Conservation of Yangon s Heritage as a Tool for Sustainable Development

Fig. 35 Regulations and guidelines are needed to control inappropriate renovation and upgrading,
addition, and new development in conservation areas.

space (Fig. 32). So one opportunity is we have the These are some problems that people feel that the
63 acres of land, the central railway station, that the heritage building to become a business and they have
government is ready to redevelop with the investors inappropriate façade and then the technique is im-
(Fig. 33). But this is one of the last opportunities portant. We have those who renovated (Fig. 35); we
to be a public utilities use. It’s the same to the port, requested the government to require a conservation
because if the port is to be moved out, then the many management plan. This is also used in the many sig-
opportunities for the utilities and public space can be nificant buildings now kind of the practice. So, this is
gone (Fig. 34). what we have been advising on the renovation.
Lecture 2

40 Fig. 36 Kempinski Hotel


Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

Fig. 37 Advocating developer and professionals that heritage buildings’ interiors are equally import-
ant to theirs façade.
Lecture 2
Fig. 38 Demonstrated Conservation Project: 501, Merchant Road

41

Conservation of Yangon s Heritage as a Tool for Sustainable Development

Fig. 39 Doh Eain YGN


Growing local businesses in heritage properties. There are initiatives by other local NGOs that renovating in deal
with home owners.
Lecture 2

One interesting thing is that this one is to be is what the belief is and the opportunity is that the
a hotel – Kempinski Hotel in the next year. They management, city management has changed, and the
already have renovated. Before they renovated, we new government with the vision that comes along
requested them to dig out and we found the Mon with us and the increasing awareness on the conser-
Heritage is some centuries ago under 15 feet below vation and heritage would hopefully bring in towards
(Fig. 36). So not only the façade is important, the the city development, so integrating heritage into
interiors are important too (Fig. 37). urban policy, understanding heritage and educating
So, Fig. 38 is the demonstration project that we technical knowledge.
worked together with the Princess Foundation from
UK. We have this with the help of Australian gov- The last thing I want to say is leaving for the next
ernment to deliver the trainings. So, not only that generation to make a decision is also very important.
initiative that the public – private initiatives also too This is Yangon, so we cannot expect a very fine reno-
because of heritage becoming a little bit of more pop- vation with the millions of dollars to be spent. I think
ular and then initiated from the businesses are also to that is fine with the people, with their own
be seen. The place has become the young people to decision, the vibrant and the dynamic city as
hang out, something like that (Fig. 39). So, revitaliz- it is and that we care about. Thank you.
ing the site would bring the pride of the city. So, that

42
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia
Lecture 3
The Small City with Abstract
In the early definition of sustainable develop-
Big Dreams: ment, culture was not a priority dimension in the
The World Heritage City framework. Nonetheless, it has been recognized as
of Vigan and its Heritage- fundamental element in the United Nations (UN)
Resolution for Culture and Diversity. The UNESCO
Driven Sustainable World Heritage Convention is considered as the
Development epitome of sustainable development in many world
heritage sites. In the World Heritage policy state-
Eric B. Zerrudo ment, sustainable development perspectives, with
Director, UST Graduate School - Center for Conservation of
considerations to climate change, tourism, migration
Cultural Property and Environment in the Tropics
and terrorism, have been integrated into the pro-
Eva Marie S. Medina cesses of the World Heritage Convention. The World
Former Mayor, the World Heritage City of Vigan Heritage City of Vigan became cognizant of the
integrative role of heritage towards development in
its long struggle to balance heritage conservation and
economic progress. Burdened by historical and geo-
graphical constraints, the small city introspectively
harnessed its history and heritage to transform its
image, its economy, its people and its future. It pur-
sued the following objectives: to develop the sense of
pride, identity and place of the Biguenos to their city;
to institutionalize local protective measures and de-
velopment plans to ensure continuity and encourage
maximum involvement of stakeholders; to forge local 43

The World Heritage City of Vigan and its Heritage-Driven Sustainable Development
The Small City with Big Dreams:
and international network to provide opportunities
for good practice in local governance and heritage
conservation, and to develop Vigan as a tourist des-
tination where the people’s lives are enriched and the
core values and traditions are preserved.
To reinforce these objectives, human develop-
ment and risk mitigation programs were also im-
After graduating from De La Salle University (Philippines),
plemented. The human development program, a
earned a Master of Cultural Heritage from Deakin University tool to curb poverty incidence, focused on livelihood
(Australia). After a career including serving as Director for through manpower development and credit accessi-
Administration of the Metropolitan Museum of Manila,
Special Assistant for Cultural Affairs in the Japan Information bility for medium, small and micro enterprises. The
and Cultural Center of the Embassy of Japan, and at the risk reduction program embarked on infrastructure
Philippines Government Service Insurance System, served development, solid waste recycling and the contin-
as Consultant for International Affairs to the Philippines
government s National Commission for Culture and the Arts ued documentation of historic houses and structures.
and as Executive Director of the Metropolitan Museum of These herculean efforts have catapulted the city into
Manila before assuming his current position. Also serves exemplary achievements. The tourism, education and
as a member of the UNESCO National Commission of the
Philippines, Senior Cultural Heritage and Development investment statistics have all increased. On the other
Adviser to the Department of Tourism, and Program hand, the poverty incidence, education drop outs and
Consultant and Associate Professor in the Cultural Heritage malnutrition figures have all gone down. The city’s
Studies Program at the University of Santo Tomas Graduate
School, among other roles. In addition to having worked revenue has been meteoric. The Vigan experience
on numerous missions related to preservation of cultural has become a model for development and has be-
heritage together with overseas research institutions, he
come aspiration for many Philippine cities. Vigan
also has conducted cultural mapping of the cities of the
Philippines for ascertaining the state of cultural use of has responsibly conserved its cultural heritage which
individual facilities and heritage sites. became the driving force to sustainable development.
Lecture 3

Fig. 1 Original Manuscript of the Royal Decree

Introduction 1999. Even though short of the national standard for


With the advocacy for sustainable development at cityhood i.e. population and revenue, it has become
the turn of the millennium, the dimension of cultural a role model for development in the country with its
heritage has not been prioritized. Classic sustain- conscious advocacy for sustainability and intergener-
able development definition upholds the Brundtland ational responsibility.
Commission declaration as “development that meets
the needs of the present without compromising the History
ability of the future generations to meet their own Vigan was a thriving trading post when conquis-
44 needs” (WCED, 1987). This context focuses and il- tador Don Juan de Salcedo discovered it in 1572.
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

lustrates the triumvirate of social, economic and the When the seat of the Catholic Diocese of Nueva
environment dimensions. In the 2010 UN Resolution Segovia was established in 1758 by virtue of a Royal
on Culture and Diversity, culture was recognized as Decree (Fig. 1), her status was elevated into a city
the foundation for sustainable development “ac- named Ciudad Fernandina de Bigan. For more than
knowledging that culture is a source of enrichment a century, Vigan was the centre of political, religious,
and an important contributor to the local communi- economic, social and cultural activities in Northern
ties, peoples and nations, empowering them to play Philippines (Galang, 2014). When the Manila-
an active and unique role in development initiatives” Acapulco Galleon trade came to an end in 1825,
(Turner, 2012). And this pronouncement under- trade, commerce and industry declined.
scores the role of the World Heritage Convention as Later on, Vigan was reverted into a municipality.
the epitome for sustainability which has been exem- In the 1960s, the trading of Virginia tobacco was
plified in the management of World Heritage sites established to spur the economy. However, the polit-
(Van Oers, 2015). In a policy statement, the World ical instability and abuses of private political armies
Heritage Center declared the integration of sustain- triggered an out-migration of local businessmen and
able development perspectives in the processes of the ancestral homeowners. The historic district virtually
World Heritage Convention, emphasizing the global became a ghost town and no man’s land (Fig. 2).
contexts of climate change, tourism, migration and Although peace and order improved in the 1980s, the
terrorism (UNESCO WHC, 2015). local economy remained depressed. In 1995, Vigan
The World Heritage of Vigan became cognizant was a second class municipality with annual reve-
of the integrative role of heritage towards develop- nue that was hardly enough to defray the salaries
ment in its struggle to balance heritage conservation of its city employees let alone deliver the most basic
and economic progress. From a trading town during services. Poverty was at its peak with 45.8 % of her
the Spanish Colonial period, it went into hibernation populace living below the poverty line threshold. It
for decades until its World Heritage inscription in was a struggling, diminishing community adversely
Lecture 3
Fig. 2 CALLE CRISOLOGO Ghost Town

45

The World Heritage City of Vigan and its Heritage-Driven Sustainable Development
Fig. 3 The Small City with Big Dreams:

affected by historical misfortunes beyond her control. or forest lands for trekking and sports. These tourism
The town of Vigan is the capital town of Ilocos constraints posited challenges to the city.
Sur. By national standard of cityhood, it only has
a population of 45,143 (2016) out of the required The Vision
250,000 minimum number of people. By revenue, it The Vigan City government introspectively dis-
only generated Php 23,000,000 revenue in 1995 out covered the treasure of limitless potentials – the rich
of the minimum requirement of Php 500,000,000 cultural heritage that was unnoticed, unused and
(Vigan City Government, 2017). Vigan was a small untapped. The local government collaborated with
historic town that went into oblivion for some time. all stakeholders to transform Vigan, using heritage
It lacked the comparative advantage in terms of nat- conservation as the major tool for development. The
ural tourism sites. It does not have beautiful white endeavours were anchored on four objectives of the
sand beaches because its coast is gray with strong un- conservation program.
dercurrent. It does not have exotic mountain ranges 1. The first objective was to fortify the sense of
Lecture 3

identity and pride of the Biguenos on their his- is an exceptionally intact and well-preserved ex-
toric city. This was an essential ingredient that ample of a European trading town in East and
developed a high level of confidence and sense of Southeast Asia” (Villalon, 2005). On January 22,
community. The city embarked on a massive re- 2001, the colonial status of Vigan as a city was
search and information dissemination on the city’s successfully restored as promulgated pursuant to
history, traditions and culture through the city RA 8988 “An Act Converting the Municipality of
website, facebook, fan page, brochures, video films, Vigan into a Component City of the Province of
newsletters, coffee table books, postal stamps and Ilocos Sir as the City of Vigan.”
workbooks for children (City Government of 2. The second objective was to institutionalize local
Vigan, 2009) (Fig. 3). protective measures and development plans to en-
With the collaboration of all stakeholders, sure continuity of the programs and encourage
Vigan was inscribed in the World Heritage list maximum involvement of stakeholders. The city
for cultural properties in 1999 (Fig. 4). It was government enacted conservation ordinances such
inscribed under criteria ii and iv. Criteria ii stated as: defining the boundaries of the historic district
“Vigan represents a unique fusion of Asian build- specifying the core an buffer zones (Fig. 5); pro-
ing design and construction with European archi- viding the general conservation guidelines as well
tecture and planning” and criteria iv noted “Vigan as specifying the compatible uses of structures

46
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

Basis of inscription:
(ii): Vigan represents a unique fusion of Asian building design and
construction with European colonial architecture and planning, and
criterion
(iv): Vigan is an exceptionally intact and well preserved example of a
European trading town in East and South-east Asia
Fig. 4

Fig. 5 Defining boundaries Fig. 6 Multi-Sectoral Conservation Council


Core and Buffer Zones of the Historic District
Lecture 3
within the protected zone; an act creating a 7). In cooperation with UNESCO-Bangkok
multi-sector conservation council that served as and the University of Northern Philippines, the
a clearing house for building permits within the city government published the Vigan Ancestral
historic district (Fig. 6); the conservation code Homeowners Preservation Manual (UNESCO
was enacted to provide detailed guidelines for Bangkok, 2010) (Fig. 8). This was designed as a
the repair and restoration of historic buildings practical and user-friendly management tool to
(UNESCO Bangkok, 2010). guide homeowners, custodians and developers
3. The third objective was to forge local and in- in their proper maintenance, repair and adaptive
ternational linkages which provided opportuni- reuse of their historic properties. In collabora-
ties to imbibe best practices in local governance tion with the University of Santo Tomas-Center
and heritage conservation. In partnership with for the Conservation of Cultural Property and
the Spanish government and in close consul- the Environment in the Tropics (CCCPET),
tation with all stakeholders, the Vigan Master cultural heritage mapping of tangible and in-
Plan was formulated and implemented (Fig. tangible cultural properties was conducted

MOA Signing for the formulation of Formal turn-over of the Vigan Master Signing of MOA for Sectoral Projects
the Vigan Master Plan by Cooperating Plan for the revitalization of the Historic and the establishment of the Master 47
Agencies District of Vigan and the keys to the Plan office for the implementation of

The World Heritage City of Vigan and its Heritage-Driven Sustainable Development
The Small City with Big Dreams:
Vigan Culture and Trade Center. Master Plan.
Fig. 7 Vigan Master-Development Plan Restoration of an Ancestral Building

Fig. 8 Vigan Ancestral Homeowners Preservation Manual


Lecture 3

(USTGS-CCCPET, 2006) (Fig. 9). Significant tourist destination where tourism programs en-
outcomes of the mapping were the heritage river riched and conserved the people’s core values and
cruise highlighting Vigan’s history in narrative traditions, as well as sustain livelihood and create
and life-size tableaus and the “Buridek” the Vigan employment opportunities for Biguenos. The city
children’s museum, the first of its kind in Northern revitalized many traditional festivals and intro-
Philippines (Fig. 10). The Vigan Conservation duced new ones to showcase the rich heritage of
Complex was established to secure the gains in Vigan.
the preservation of the city’s heritage (Fig. 11).
Its components include a training facility for res- The Vigan fiesta in January commemorates St.
toration and traditional industries, a three section Paul the Apostle, the city’s patron saint and cele-
museum featuring simbahan or church, ciudad or brates the role of various sectors in society, including
city and balay or ancestral houses; conservation a cookfest and street dancing on the theme of long-
materials depot where old parts of houses may be ganisa, a locally made and nationally famous sausage.
bought for repair, concessions, a hostel and the The Semana Santa or Holy Week is a religious ob-
President Elpidio Quirino Memorial archives and servance of the passion and death of Christ; the Viva
research center. Vigan Binatbatan festival of the arts in May; the
Forthcoming is a theme park which shall be a World Heritage Cities solidarity cultural festival in
reflection of important sites and traditions of the September (Fig. 12), a revival of different expression
five provinces that comprised the Spanish colonial of entertainment from the past; the Raniag Vigan
province of Ylocos with Vigan as the capital. And Twilight Festival on the last week of October, featur-
another is the restoration of a four-storey ances- ing evening street dancing and electric float parade
tral building in the heart of the heritage district. It while in December the lantern and torch parade and
will serve as the Vigan products display and pro- the Artes Ita Pascua. In total, there are six (6) colour-
motion center, art gallery for promising artists and ful heritage festivities that give both the residents
48 the sub-station of the Bureau of Fire Protection and tourists a variety of experience all year round.
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

and Public Safety as a disaster mitigating effort. The city government constructed the Vigan
4. The fourth objective was to develop Vigan as a Convention Center which brought windfall benefits

Fig. 9 Cultural Mapping


Lecture 3
The Small City with Big Dreams:
49

The World Heritage City of Vigan and its Heritage-Driven Sustainable Development
Fig. 10 The “Buridek” the Vigan children’s museum

Fig. 11 The Vigan Conservation Complex


Lecture 3

to the city (Fig. 13). A pair of mural paintings of miki, sinanglao, barbecued longganisa and many
Vigan’s history was mounted on the walls of its cen- more. The dancing fountain in the town plaza has
tral hall, a painting depicting the performances along become a blockbuster attraction (Fig. 16).
the northern lobby, and a bar relief of letras y figuras The private sector has also joined the tourism
adorn the main lobby. The convention center has bandwagon. They have established destinations
become not only a venue for gatherings but also a such as the Baluarte Zoo, the Hidden Garden, the
cultural showcase to view the heritage of Vigan. The Pagburnayan or jar factories, the native delicacies
city produced three zarzuelas or musical plays. These zone and the Inabel or loom weaving village (Fig.
are entitled “Ang Babae sa Digmaan” or The Women 17). Along with these hotels, restaurants, souvenir
of War, a musical on how Vigan, its historic district shops and other tourism related establishments have
and architecture were saved during WW II because mushroomed to cater to the needs and demands of
of the two beautiful love stories between beautiful visitors (Villalon, 2012) (Fig. 18).
Vigan ladies and Japanese soldiers, Adela and Fujiro To reinforce private sector initiatives, the city gov-
Takahashi and Belen and Narioka (Fig. 14); “Tres ernment set up the local economic enterprises. These
Patrimonio” or Three Patrimonies, featured excerpts were the central bus and jeepney terminal, Vigan
from the lives of national heroes from Vigan; and public market, Playa de Oro resort, Vigan culture
“Q” the musical about the life of President Elpidio and trade center, the slaughterhouse, the Mira Hills
Quirino who was born in Vigan (Fig. 15). The Vigan Spanish friendship park and the Villa Fernandina de
cultural troupe, composed of city government em- Vigan. The Villa Fernandina de Vigan was a 4,500
ployees who performed as actors in the zarzuelas, sq. m. property with a two- story building that served
have already developed a regular repertoire of songs as a satellite office in the Metropolitan Manila that
and dances. offered accommodation facilities. It was home for
The street food court was developed serving people displaying Vigan products, transacting busi-
Vigan’s native delicacies such as empanada, okoy, ness and most especially to those attending to their
50
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

Fig. 12 Solidarity Day


Lecture 3
Fig. 13 The Vigan Convention Center
Center for Gatherings, Educational and Cultural Showcase

51

The World Heritage City of Vigan and its Heritage-Driven Sustainable Development
The Small City with Big Dreams:

Fig. 14 Performing Arts “Ang Babae sa Digmaan”


Lecture 3

sick relatives. people, best practices and events (Fig. 19).


For the city, to deepen their trust in transparency In 2014, Vigan celebrated its inclusion as one of
and to sustain good housekeeping, TVigan the city the New Seven Wonder Cities of the World, a re-
cable network was launched as the media arm that sult of the city and community’s collective resolve to
effectively informs, entertains and educates through claim another distinction, it is a source of pride not
television programs rooted in Vigan’s heritage culture, only for every Bigueno but for every Filipino. These

52
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

Fig. 15 “Q” The Musical

Fig. 16 Dancing Fountain at Plaza Salcedo


Lecture 3
cumulative achievements developed Vigan as a tour- program was “Pagsapulan Raniag ti Masakbayan.”
ist destination. Vigan tourist arrivals increased from The elements of these were manpower develop-
373,570 in 2009 to 1,045,491 in 2016. The number ment through the Vigan Skills Training Institute
of hotels/souvenir shops and restaurants increased (VSTI) (Fig. 21). VSTI developed three national
from 5 in 2007 to 189 to 2016 (Fig. 20). The cultural level Technical Education and Skills Development
industry, composed of museums, libraries, heritage Authority (TESDA) accredited courses namely fin-
houses, and education centers has been registered to ishing course for call center agents, escuela taller or
293 in 2016 (Vigan City Government, 2017). community based training for restorers and escuela
de los mataderos or school of butchers. It offered an
Human development array of short term livelihood training like: artistic
The city government had the resolve to curb jewelry, fruit and vegetable carving, theatrical pup-
poverty in all forms. Initiated as flagship livelihood petry workshop, sandals and slipper making, massage

53

The World Heritage City of Vigan and its Heritage-Driven Sustainable Development
The Small City with Big Dreams:
Hidden Garden Native Delicacies Zone Pagburnayan Loom Weaving Village
Fig. 17

Fig. 18 Hotels, Restaurants, Souvenir Shops and Other Tourism Related Establishment
Lecture 3

therapy, cosmetology and enhanced sewing and gar- almost half of the population down to 3.4 % as of
ments technology. 2016 and still descending with various multi-sectoral
Second program was lending to small to medium interventions (Fig. 22). The education completion
and micro enterprises (MSMEs), One-Town-One- rate is 98.35 % (2016) with a dropout rate of only
Product (OTOP) manufacturers, farmers and fisher 0.56 % (2016). The malnutrition rate was down to
folks and cooperatives with the Nueva Segovia con- 2.18 % (2016). (Vigan City Government, 2017).
sortium of cooperatives as fund handler; and third The once sleepy municipality transformed into a
program was the direct livelihood assistance such as bustling city that is rich in culture and history. Today,
tricycle for hire with a franchise to operate, sari sari tourism related investments keep coming and are
store, native delicacies, kalesa and rice vending for wielding a multiplier effect in the income generating
the poorest of the poor. capabilities of the Biguenos and the people of neigh-
Poverty alleviation efforts brought down the city bouring towns. This has created brighter prospects
poverty incidence from 45.8 % in 1995 which plagued for the economy.

54
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

Fig. 19 The City Government Cable Network

Fig. 20 Both Commercially Accomodated and Day Time Tourist in 2016


Lecture 3
From a second class municipality with an income tragedy in Metro Manila where tons and tons of un-
of 27 million pesos (approximately 540,000 USD) collected garbage blocked and choked the exit ways
in 1995, this has reached to annual budget of 378 of rainwater which caused massive destructive flood-
million pesos (7.6 million USD) in 2016 (Vigan ing, there was the urgent call to manage and address
City Government, 2017) (Fig. 23). With the added the proper disposal of solid wastes.
revenue from heritage based tourism activities and The Vigan materials recovery facility manages
local economic enterprises, the city has been able 15,000 m3 of garbage. It processes more than 300
to deliver effective public services in terms of public tons of biodegradable waste into organic fertilizers
infrastructure, health, educational and social services, for farmers through bioreactors (Fig. 25). Plastics
environmental protection, public safety, disaster risk and styrofoam are recycled into styroplastic oven and
reduction and management and many more (Fig. 24). turned into tables for day care centers and paving
blocks (Fig. 26). Plastic bags, candy wrappers and
Risk Reduction Program sachets are pulverized and used as extenders for con-
The impact of climate change to a highly vulnera- crete products and throw pillow fillers in livelihood
ble country like the Philippines was undeniable. The projects. Paper is reprocessed into cooking fuel bris-
city proactively embarked on various risk reduction kets or used by city hall employees as secondary
programs. To mitigate flooding, the city worked on paper for office documents (Fig. 27). The solid waste
dredging rivers, building sea walls, slope protection management has been fully implemented in all 39
and canals. Having learnt from the 2008 Ondoy barangays who now collect garbage from households.

55

The World Heritage City of Vigan and its Heritage-Driven Sustainable Development
The Small City with Big Dreams:

Fig. 21 Manpower development Vigan skills training institute


Three Accredited Courses, Finishing Courses for Call Center Agents, Eskwela Talyer, Eskwela De Los Mataderos
Lecture 3

Subsequently, the city garbage trucks regularly col- ancestral houses, monuments and churches found
lect from their designated barangay material recovery in Vigan and many governments all over the world
facilities. The city government provides two tricabs was a necessary component not only in conservation
for each barangay’s solid waste management service but in disaster mitigation efforts. Even with available
vehicle. Dump trucks are also provided to the baran- funds to rebuild the buildings in Bohol, if there were
gays with the largest volume of garbage. no basis from where to start, then it will remain as
In the aftermath of the 2013 Bohol tragedy where an exercise in futility. Thus, the city government pur-
national treasures such as churches, fortifications chased the 3 dimensional laser scanner. This gener-
and other historic structures were pulverized to the ates highly accurate ad comprehensive baseline data
ground by mega earthquakes. It became evident of the surroundings and infrastructure for architec-
that documentation of significant structures such as ture, civil, urban planning, disaster risk reduction and

Economic Growth

P378,967,068.00

P27,000,000.00

1995 Current Budget


Pesos 27,000,000.00 378,967,068.00

56 Fig. 22 Third component Fig. 23 Second Class Municipality


Direct livelihood assistance for the poorest of the poor Added Revenues from Heritage Based Tourism Activities
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

and Local Economic Enterprises Able to Deliver Effective


Services

Fig. 24 Socialized housing for informal settlers


Lecture 3
management and even real property assessment. The and tourism at the same time its colonial heritage
generated data serve as reference for interventions to ensures that the values and traditions that made
address possible dangers to the city’s tangible heri- Biguenos survive and flourish are safeguarded for
tage as well as strengthen public safety. future generations.
Significantly, the city’s efforts have led to various
Conclusion national and international recognition such as the
For many years, many heritage advocates, con- Hall of Fame Award for the most child friendly
servationists and even economists had difficulty rec- Component City of the Philippines; the Cleanest,
onciling conservation with economic advancement. Greenest and Safest city in the whole Ilocos Region;
The Vigan experience however demonstrated that national winner of the Gawad Pamana ng Lahi,
heritage conservation can be pursued hand in hand the country’s most prestigious recognition for ex-
with economic development of a heritage site. Vigan cellence in Local Governance; the National Galing
continues to be a secure, vibrant center for trade Pook Award for heritage conservation programs; the

Fig. 25 Zero Waste Management Center


Biodegradable Wastes into Organic Fertilizers
57

The World Heritage City of Vigan and its Heritage-Driven Sustainable Development
The Small City with Big Dreams:
Fig. 26 Into Paving Blocks and Tables

Fig. 27 Paper into Cooking Brickets


Lecture 3

Fig. 28 UNESCO Awardee for Best Practice in World Heritage Management

58
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

Fig. 29 Conservation Guidelines have to be reviewed and reformatted


Problems on traffic have to be addressed, ancestral houses are still in varied states of disrepair

Gawad Kalusugan Pangkalahataan for implementa- up with the changing times. But with the necessary
tion of excellent health programs and , the most cov- elements of development set in place and the re-
eted and most prestigious UNESCO Best Practice invigorated pride of the citizens in themselves and
in World Heritage Site Management awarded on the their city, Vigan’s growth and development will be
occasion of the 40th Anniversary of UNESCO in sustained (Fig. 29). The powerful images and sounds
2012 in Kyoto (Fig. 28). of modern sophisticated living have established their
The city is aware more needs to be done to keep marked presence. However, these cannot drown the
Lecture 3
Fig. 30 Vigan has opened itself to change but it has not sacrificed the bountiful wealth of its heritage

elegance and civility of the past. It is exactly the abil- Philippines, Bangkok: UNESCO Bangkok and The City
59

The World Heritage City of Vigan and its Heritage-Driven Sustainable Development
The Small City with Big Dreams:
ity of coping with the needs of the present amidst the Government of Vigan.
bounds set by centuries old legacy that make Vigan ・ United Nations Educational, Scientific and Social
Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Center (2015).
a living city. It has opened itself to change but it has Draft Policy Document for the Integration of a Sustainable
not sacrificed the bountiful wealth of its heritage Development Perspective into the Processes of the
(Fig. 30). Vigan’s responsible conservation of World Heritage Convention WHC-15/20.GA/INF.13.
its heritage became the driving force to a Unpublished manuscript. WHC Paris.
sustainable development. ・ University of Santo Tomas-Graduate School Center for
Conservation f Cultural Property and the Environment in
the Tropics (UST GS CCCPET) (2006). Cultural Mapping
References of Vigan World Heritage City Vols. 1-15.Manila: UST.
・ City Government of Vigan, (2009). Our Vigan, Cultural Unpublished.
Activity Book for Young Biguenos. Vigan: Philippines. ・ Van Oers, R. (2015). Cultural Heritage Management
・ City Government of Vigan, (2009). I am a Bigueno: A and Sustainability. In Albert, M-T. (ed.) Perceptions of
Workbook in English for Grades Four to Six Readers. Vigan: Sustainability in Heritage Studies. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter,
Philippines. 191.
・ Galang, R. (2014). Re-visioning Ilocos. In Manalo, I. (ed.) ・ Vigan City Government (VCG) (2017). Accessed 21 August
Conscripcion: Imagining and Inscribing the Ilocano World. 2017. http//www.vigancity.gov.ph
Manila: National Archives of the Philippines, Provincial ・ Villalon, A. (2005). Living Landscapes and Cultural
Government of Ilocos Sur and Metropolitan Museum of Landmarks. Manila: ArtPost Asia Pte. Ltd. 147-170.
Manila. 31-47. ・ Villalon, A. (2012). World Heritage benefits for the com-
・ Turner, M. (2012). World Heritage and Sustainable munity of Vigan, Philippines. In UNESCO (2012), World
Development. In World Heritage 65, 8. Heritage 65, 32-37.
・ United Nations Educational, Scientific and Social organiza- ・ WCED, (1987). Report of the World Commission on
tion (UNESCO) Bangkok (2010). Heritage Homeowners’ Environment and Development: Our Common Future. New
Preservation Manual for World Heritage City of Vigan, York. United Nations.
Lecture 4

The Conflict Resolution 1. Value of Hoi An Ancient Town,


a Cultural Heritage Site
between Hoi An Cultural Today, I would like to talk about the contradictory
Heritage Preservation relationship between the development of contempo-
and the Development in rary society and the preservation of cultural heritage,
focusing on the case of Hoi An, where cultural prop-
Contemporary Society erties are protected well.
Nguyen Su Hoi An Ancient Town is located in the central
Former Chairman, Hoi An Municipal People’s Council region of Vietnam, Quang Nam Province, on the
northern bank near the mouth of the Thu Bon River.
The registered heritage site has an area of 30 hectares
and is in a landscape conservation area (buffer area
zone) of 280 hectares. The heritage site is considered
a typical example of a small-scale, yet well-conserved
trading port, which was prosperous from the 15th
century to the 19th century having extensive trade
relations with Southeast Asia, East Asia, and the rest
of the world. The decline of this commercial port city
toward the end of the 19th century largely helped it
retain its traditional urban tissue. The Ancient Town
reflects a fusion of indigenous and foreign cultures
(earlier from Chinese and Japanese to later European
influences) to establish this culturally unique heri-
tage site. In Hoi An, a bridge called the “Japanese
60 Covered Bridge” was constructed by the Japanese
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

people between the 16th and the 17th century.


The heritage site comprises a well-conserved com-
plex of 1,107 wooden architectural works with brick
or wooden walls, including architectural structures,
houses, stores, markets, ferry quays, religious works
such as pagodas and family cult houses, and a small
Japanese bridge. The architectural complex of Hoi
An Ancient Town is considered a “Living Heritage
(a live relic)” because even today about 10,000 people
lead their normal lives in the town bearing a strong
After teaching in high school and then serving in the military
for six years, served in numerous roles in rural and urban attachment to every architectural structure, their tra-
communities, including those of Deputy Secretary of the Hoi ditional cultural activities, and their living style. Hoi
An Municipal Party Committee and Chairman of the Hoi An An Ancient Town with its prominent global values
City People s Committee (mayor) from 1994 through 2004.
Later served as Commissioner of the Quang Nam Provincial was designated a World Cultural Heritage Site by
Party Committee and Secretary of the Hoi An Municipal UNESCO on December 4, 1999.
Party Committee, Chairman of the Hoi An Municipal People s
Council, and in other roles. He has worked to preserve the
townscapes of Hoi An, and during his time as Chairman 2. Relationship between Preservation and
of the Hoi An City People s Committee the city s Ancient Development Based on the View from Hoi An
Town was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The world heritage site bears diverse relationships
(During his time as Secretary of the Hoi An Municipal Party
Committee and Chairman of the Hoi An Municipal People s around it. Today, I refer to the relationship between
Council, he worked on choosing directions for the city s preservation and development, which is contradic-
overall development in various aspects including economics, tory and mutual at the same time. This relationship
culture, politics, and public safety, and he played a leading
role in monitoring of related activities.) He was given the title is not unique to Hoi An but common to many other
of the Labor Hero in the Renovation Period in 2005. world heritage sites as well. First, the contradictory
Lecture 4
relationship can be seen by focusing on the following socio-economic development.
statements: Preservation activities need to be conducted to
- The need to preserve the status quo is in con- work closely for the benefit of the local communi-
tradiction with people’s need for modern life ties. The government implemented this principle by
development. assisting people in the restoration of their traditional
- The process of preservation is in contradiction houses, facilitating all local residents to benefit from
with the process of urbanization and tourism the cultural heritage through these activities.
development. In addition, the government obtained consent
- The preservation of the traditional lifestyle is in from the residents before establishing any policy or
contradiction with the development of a modern regulation by responding to their legitimate demands
lifestyle. and meeting the needs of their daily life.
Unless these contradictions are resolved, the value Finally, the government made balanced invest-
of the cultural heritage site will reduce, and the local ments for old and new urban spaces to maintain their
economy will not develop further. Thus, the Hoi An relationship as that of equals.
municipality actually responds to these contradictory
issues by undertaking to follow a mutual relationship: Conclusion
First, we preserved the heritage site and developed In recent times, Hoi An Ancient Town has im-
the local economy in turns. In 1995, the number of plemented efficient solutions for the relationship
hotel rooms in Hoi An was 8 to accept 1,000 visitors between preservation and development, and it has
a year, while in 2016, the number of rooms increased achieved some positive results. However, it is difficult
to 8,000 to accept 2 million guests annually. The to resolve the relationship issues completely and op-
sales of admission tickets in Hoi An were US$ 2,000 timally. In Hoi An, various issues that are yet to be
in 1995, which exponentially increased to US$ 8 resolved have emerged during its development, such
million in 2016. Approximately 70 % of the ticket as environmental pollution due to human economic
sales are used as subsidy for restoration of old private activities; changes in the functioning of old houses 61

the Development in Contemporary Society


The Conflict Resolution between Hoi An Cultural Heritage Preservation and
houses. The economic climate in 1995 was not too due to tourism and service activities; changes in the
good, but in 2016, annual tourism and service activi- traditional lifestyles of people tending toward con-
ties made up 65-67 % of the total city budget. temporary ones; and changes in ownership from local
Second, the preservation of the heritage site went residents to outsiders. These issues require further
together with the increase in people’s income. The quests for satisfactory, appropriate solutions toward
smooth operation of the cultural heritage site in- sustainable development, which requires col-
creased people’s income. In other words, the funds laboration with professionals and experts on
required for protection and restoration of cultural preservation of cultural heritage.
heritage were available thanks to the economic de-
velopment and to the improvement in people’s living
conditions.
Whether it is a contradictory or mutual relation-
ship depends on the means adopted by the local
communities and authorities. It is important to un-
derstand how to minimize contradictions and pro-
mote the best mutual relationship.

3. Solutions for the Relationship Issues


between Preservation and
Development of Hoi An
The municipal government established a general
orientation to (a) preserve and sustainably promote
Hoi An Cultural Heritage Site and (b) consider
preservation as the basis and foundation for local
Lecture 5

Sustainable Development Today, I will introduce our activities from three


perspectives, with a focus on the protection of cul-
of Hoi An Ancient Town tural heritage, conducted under the direction of the
and Japan’s International person responsible for the buildings of the Cultural
Cooperation Properties Protection Department of the Agency for
Cultural Affairs, as well as cooperation as a JICA
Hiromichi Tomoda partner in the improvement of local economies and
Director, Showa Women’s University Institute of environments through tourism, and community de-
International Culture
velopment through exchange among residents of the
cities growing over a long period with the support of
the Japan Foundation.

I. Protection of Cultural Heritage


Toward Registration as a World Heritage Site:
Townscape of Hoi An Ancient Town
Japan is home to numerous wooden structures,
including Horyuji Temple, the world’s oldest group
of buildings, and Todaiji Temple, the world’s largest
structure completed in ancient times. Japan’s con-
servation and restoration techniques are highly re-
garded throughout the world. I have heard that in the
1991 Hoi An International Symposium, for which
Professor Ishizawa served as a representative, Japan
was asked to cooperate in the restoration of con-
62 served buildings in the town, as a pressing issue.
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

In response to a request from the Cultural


Properties Department of the Agency for Cultural
Affairs, Showa Women’s University began cooperat-
ing in the conservation of Vietnam’s Hoi An Ancient
Town in 1992, as part of the “Cooperation Project
for the Conservation and Restoration of Cultural
Properties and Buildings in the Asia-Pacific Region.”
A graduate from the University of Tokyo in March 1974 In March 1993, we were invited to the Executive
(Architectural Planning). He took a position with Showa Office of the President, where Vice President Nguyen
Women s University in 1981, and in 2011 he was named
Director of the University s Institute of International Culture.
Thi Binh requested us to cooperate in the conserva-
He has managed the Hoi An architectural preservation project tion of the townscape of Hoi An, and we then started
since 1992, and in 1999 the project won a UNESCO Asia- a study of private houses there.
Pacific Heritage Award for Cultural Heritage Conservation, an
Architectural Institute of Japan Prize, and other prizes as Hoi
First, we organized gatherings of residents to ask
An Old Town was named a Cultural Heritage Site. The 2004 them what they wanted for conservation. In response
JICA development partnership project to preserve wooden to many residents’ strong desire for “an end to leaking
folk houses in Vietnam and the 2013 project to preserve the
farming village of Duong Lam also won UNESCO Asia-Pacific
roofs,” we carried out construction work to replace
Heritage Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation as well roofs. This work involved the removal and replace-
as the Vietnam Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism Prize ment of tiles on 20 houses per year, at a cost of 50,000
and other awards. He was awarded the Japan Commissioner
for Cultural Affairs Award in 2014 for lifetime contributions yen per house. We were able to complete it in three
to international exchange in the field of protection of years at an annual cost of a million yen (Fig. 1a).
cultural heritage. In addition to cooperation in architectural At the same time, we also engaged in techni-
preservation, He also has been involved in helping to improve
local economies through tourism promotion and achieving cal transfer for the restoration of cultural properties
continual support for urban development through pairing with through full-scale demolition and restoration work
local governments in Japan. (Fig. 1b). We chose the first traditional house that
Lecture 5
a b c

Construction work to replace Demolition of a traditional house and Restoration of a traditional house through
leaking roofs consideration of its restoration method technical transfer with private donations
Fig. 1 What residents want is considered

Before and after the restoration of a traditional house (façade) Tran phu 70

Renovated into the Museum
of Trade Ceramics 63

Sustainable Development of Hoi An Ancient Town and Japan s International Cooperation


b

Before the demolition of a traditional house Restored after technical advancement


(preserved as materials after the demolition) (epoxy resin is used)
Fig. 2 Cultural heritage conservation techniques that enhance the attractiveness of a community 1

could be repaired to a good appearance, avoiding verge of imminent collapse but required sophis-
difficult ones. Its restoration work was conducted by ticated techniques. Two years later, the house was
local carpenters under the direction of a conservation rebuilt after the parts were mended as technical
engineer dispatched from Japan for technical trans- transfer advanced (Fig. 2b). Another house in which
fer. The repair work certainly brought a very good four households lived an overcrowded life had a wet
appearance to the house, and our restoration work area built separately in the courtyard. Under the cir-
was highly esteemed (Fig. 2a). Today, that building is cumstances, their living environment could not be
the Museum of Trade Ceramics. improved, so we asked the residents to relocate to the
On the other hand, we preserved the parts of a suburbs before starting the restoration of the house
house that was demolished because it was on the (Fig. 3a, Fig. 4). In addition, there were many houses
Lecture 5

Before and after the restoration of a traditional house (reproduced façade)


Fig. 3 Cultural heritage conservation techniques that enhance the attractiveness of a community 2

Before and after the restoration


64 of a traditional house
(courtyard)
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

Fig. 4 Proper care is given to the inside of the house


and the family tomb as cultural heritage 1

Japanese tomb before the restoration Japanese tomb before the restoration Restored Japanese tomb
(survey of existing conditions)
Fig. 5 Proper care is given to the inside of the house and the family tomb as cultural heritage 2
Lecture 5
that had retained their traditional wooden interior, screws. There was a two-story brick restaurant with
but their exterior had been converted to brick. We a wooden balcony on the second floor, but only its
restored one of them as a case of reproduced façade boundary wall was made of brick and plastered. To
(Fig. 3b). make it traditional, wooden boards were put around
The townscape conservation in Hoi An Ancient the entrance on the first floor, creating a good atmo-
Town focuses on the conservation of the interior, in sphere (Fig 7a). In addition, the residents collected
addition to the exterior. This comprehensive conser- the fallen and scattered wooden materials for recon-
vation is highly appreciated in the restoration of this struction by carefully fabricating the pieces one by
World Heritage Site. When you travel to Hoi An to one (Fig. 7b). The regulation was flexibly controlled
enjoy its old townscape, please visit one of the tradi- according to the situation, and the wonderful ideas
tional houses and look around its rooms. All of them and deeds of the residents were commended. These
have been restored to their original state (Fig. 4). The endeavors resulted in the successful conservation of
people of Hoi An have also retained a Japanese tomb the townscape of Hoi An Ancient Town, which is
in good condition after a great deal of consideration now recorded as a World Heritage Site. At present,
(Fig. 5). two million people visit Hoi An annually. I wonder
Mayor Nguyen Su put extra effort into the im- how much the town earns in a year.
provement of the townscape for community develop-
ment by banning overflow and regulating eaves and Study of Wooden Houses as the Basis to Expand
large signboards (Fig. 6). Formulating ordinances, he International Cooperation throughout Vietnam
exercised strict control in cases of very bad condition During the cooperation with Hoi An, Director
but relaxed control in cases of good condition. He Dang Bai Bai of the Department of Cultural Heritage,
also commended good cases while tightening the the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said

65

Prohibition of projected tents Sustainable Development of Hoi An Ancient Town and Japan s International Cooperation
(before the ordinance shown on the left and after the ordinance shown on the right)

Regulation on the size and color of signboards


(before the ordinance shown on the left and after the ordinance shown on the right)
Fig. 6 Regulation is flexibly controlled according to the situation
Lecture 5

that “it is favorable not to focus on a local city but Technological Transfer for the Conservation of
to develop cooperation between the two countries Wooden Houses as Cultural Heritage through-
throughout Vietnam.” In response to this request, we out Vietnam as a JICA Development Partner
conducted an investigation of wooden private houses In 2000, when the private house investigation
as cultural heritage selected from provinces through- progressed to some extent, the JICA Development
out Vietnam with grants-in-aid for scientific research Partner Project started. Our proposal was the only
from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, one adopted from the ones proposed by universi-
Science, and Technology. For this investigation, we ties, and another proposal was also employed in the
requested the smallest-unit of local government in intellectual support area. Concretely, we chose six
each province to report “the oldest house, the most provinces (two provinces × three years) from all over
gorgeous house, and the largest house,” and a uni- Vietnam and restored one private house designated
versity of architecture took pictures of these houses as an important cultural property in each province to
as the primary investigation. Among them, 10% was convey Japanese conservation techniques for cultural
chosen to prepare drawings as the secondary inves- properties in every part of Vietnam (Fig. 8). This
tigation. Finally, the Japanese and Vietnamese sides project required significant funds, but with the aid of
consulted with each other before the field study, and JICA, it was successfully completed.
several candidates for cultural properties were listed As a result, we received the UNESCO Asia-Pacific
for each province. These basic data functioned well Heritage Award for Cultural Heritage Conservation
when we proceeded with the study of Vietnam and again following the Hoi An case.
developed international cooperation throughout the
country. We sincerely appreciated the advice from the Spirit of the Vietnamese: Conservation of
Director. Duong Lam Agricultural Settlements
It is said that the fundamental spirit of the
Vietnamese people is equality and mutual aid, which
66
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

a Façade wing walls changed to wood


(before the construction work shown
on the right and after the work
shown on the left)

Step-by-step reconstruction by residents


with fallen and scattered materials re-
turned to their original places
Fig. 7 Good cases encourage residents’ efforts
Lecture 5
exist in the primitive communist society of the agri- functioned as the secretariat, and the Nara National
cultural village. In September 2000, Đỗ Mười, for- Research Institute for Cultural Properties jointly
mer General Secretary of the Communist Party, gave conducted an investigation to conserve a group of
an order saying, “It is the national credo of Vietnam buildings, while proposing the areas to be conserved,
to become a modern industrialized country, but we a conservation ordinance, etc.
must conserve agricultural villages as they are, and Concretely, we investigated the composition of
continue to convey the fundamental spirit of com- settlements in Duong Lam Village while checking all
munism to the coming generations.” In response houses and preparing drawings for traditional houses.
to this order, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and In addition to architecture, we also performed arche-
Tourism chose Duong Lam Village outside Hanoi ological excavation, and clothing and dietary surveys,
as the first agricultural settlement to be conserved. as well as a variety of investigations for intangible
Vice Minister Luu Tran Tieu requested Japan to co- cultural properties, including historical and literature
operate in conservation activities. In March 2003, the research, jointly with Vietnam National University,
“Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation Hanoi.
related to the Conservation of Agricultural Set­ In Duong Lam Village, settlements are located on
tlements in Duong Lam Village” was concluded the hill surrounded and guarded heavily by bamboo
between Vietnam’s Ministry of Culture and groves and ponds providing a strong defense (Fig. 9).
Information and Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs. You can see a temple first (Fig. 10a, Approach Path
Under the direction of the person responsible for 1) when approaching the village. You can then see a
the buildings of the Cultural Properties Department gate, and there is an arbor called quan in front of the
of the Agency, Showa Women’s University, which gate outside the settlement (Fig. 10b, Approach Path

Duonga Lam
67

Sustainable Development of Hoi An Ancient Town and Japan s International Cooperation


Bac Ninh

Nghe An

Nam Dinh
Fuoc Tich

Cham Isle
Thanh Hoa
JICA
PARTNERSHIP
PROGRAM
Cai Be

Quang Nam

Dong Nai

Tien Giang

Fig. 8 Dissemination of conservation techniques for wooden private houses


Lecture 5

2). As the gate is closed at night to prevent access property. At that time, the person responsible for
to and from the settlement, the arbor functions as the buildings of the Cultural Properties Department
a rest house until morning when the gate is opened of the Agency for Cultural Affairs decided not to
to allow access. In the past, they had a custom of aid in restoration expenses by formulating a policy
moving dead bodies to the quwan at night when that Japanese experts would be dispatched for the
people died in the settlement, which was regarded as restoration work, the budget for which would be
unfortunate. When you pass through the gate (Fig. borne by the Vietnamese government. Unlike the
10c, Approach Path 3) to enter the village and go up conventional cases where restoration work expenses
the gentle slope, you will reach a square, which faces were provided by the Japanese government, we had
the meeting place (Fig. 10d). From the square, roads to implement technical transfer only with engineer
extend radially. When you go down the slope and dispatch expenses, which required a cultural subsidy
reach the end, there is a guardhouse called diem (Fig. from the Japan Foundation to organize the system.
10e). Usually, the guardhouse is also used as a place In other words, experts had to go there as volunteers
where young men gather at night to drink alcohol. In with their travel and transportation expenses and
Duong Lam Village, the walls and boundaries of the interpreter expenses provided. In addition, the work
houses facing the road still retain their original lat- schedule had to be altered in accordance with the
erite walls, which is a feature of the landscape there. information changing from moment to moment on
site. Fortunately, however, many people joined the
Technical Transfer to Conserve Wooden House project as volunteers from the cultural properties res-
Cultural Properties through Volunteers with toration and design office and the local governments,
the Aid of the Japan Foundation including retired persons. This is a new yet good
Technical transfer to restore cultural properties in approach in Japan’s international cooperation for the
Duong Lam Village is introduced here. In the village, protection of cultural heritage.
a heritage conservation and management office was
68 established to start conservation activities in July 2006
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

after the village was designated as a national cultural

A variety of public buildings for defense, funerals, enjoyment, large and small meetings,
as well as clan ancestor worship halls and common wells, across the town.
Fig. 9 The settlement conformation shows the life of a farming community
Lecture 5
Received the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage original old atmosphere. Since then, all inclined walls
Award for Cultural Heritage Conservation for have been restored by this approach.
the Third Time for the Duong Lam Restoration with Models Stimulating the Memories
Village Project of the Elderly: In the past, the gate of the Mong Phu
Technical transfer for restoration in Duong Lam settlement, which symbolizes the settlement, used to
Village was conducted strategically with cultural her- be closed every night. When cars started being used
itage restoration engineers, including Mr. Yoshihiro daily and its surrounding environment changed, peo-
Narumi from Wakayama and Mr. Akiyoshi Ejima ple of the settlement stopped opening and closing
from Saga. the gate. One of the gate doors had been lost and the
Restoration of Laterite Walls: Laterite walls were in- other one had been drastically modified. Although
stalled on the ground without foundation, and many more than 50 years had passed since the gate doors
of them inclined over a long period of time. As for had stopped being used, their original structure could
inclined walls, laterite bricks were removed and the be ascertained through the memories of the elderly
walls were re-laid with new ones. This is because lat- people. Therefore, we produced a model and repeat-
erite is too fragile to be reused. Accordingly, we pro- edly made corrections to it through consultations
posed a new approach that the base of the wall would with the elderly. With the consent of the elderly, we
be fixed with concrete after making the inclined wall finally succeeded in restoring the gate doors (Fig. 12).
stand upright again by fixing the wall from both On-Site Careful Work Shared among the Engineers
sides. This restoration method was successfully ad- all over Vietnam: The existing Giang Văn Minh
opted (Fig. 11). This low-cost approach does not Ancestral Hall is not necessarily an excellent struc-
require any new laterite bricks, and maintains the ture compared with the traditional private house

69

Sustainable Development of Hoi An Ancient Town and Japan s International Cooperation


b c

d e

Fig. 10 A variety of public buildings in a village community


Lecture 5

A new approach was adopted to make an inclined laterite wall stand upright again
by fixing the wall from both sides.
Fig. 11 The laterite walls remain as is
70
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

Fig. 12 Showing a reproduction model, opinions were collected from elderly people who knew the original gate doors.
This process was repeated almost ten times until all of them consented to the model.
Lecture 5
of the Mong Phu settlement. However, Giang Văn with a variety of techniques, has been used as a site
Minh, who was born in the Mong Phu settlement, where they can learn Japanese advanced restoration
was dispatched to Qing as a Vietnamese senior envoy techniques.
after passing the Chinese imperial examination with In a 1996 conference, a lasting impression was
the third best result. He died in China as a hero made when a staff member from the Agency for
of his country, safeguarding Vietnam’s integrity. His Cultural Affairs pointed out some problems with
ancestral hall was designated as a national cultural local restoration work, and Mayor Su, upon hearing
property. Therefore, the Vietnam National Cultural this, responded by banning for two years any repair
Properties Construction Company dispatched highly work conducted without guidance from Japan. This
skilled carpenters, and they restored the hall very resulted in an increase in the level of conservation
carefully. To make them understand that even private in Hoi An Ancient Town. In particular, carpenters
houses require careful restoration work, we asked started to strive to repair old building materials if
building firms and carpenters all over the country to they could be reused (Fig. 14).
join the project to convey the importance of careful Conservation of the Historically and Technically
work even for this level of structure (Fig. 13). Valuable Process: The residence of Ha Bamgbing,
Sophisticated Techniques Introduced after Tech­ which was built in 1853, gives a Western-style im-
nical Transfer: The very old and seriously damaged pression with its brick wall installed in front of the
residence of Nguyễn Văn Hưởng required sophis- house in 1924 by the grandfather, who wanted his
ticated restoration techniques, which were intro- son to become village mayor. However, large plas-
duced later. Since local carpenters improved their tered gutters were placed around the house to drain
skills sufficiently, the residence, which was restored rainwater pooled in the valley between the inclined
roof and the installed wall. Under the
usual restoration work, these plastered
gutters are replaced with stainless ones.
In this case, however, the social back- 71

Sustainable Development of Hoi An Ancient Town and Japan s International Cooperation


ground was reflected in the architec-
ture, and refurbishment techniques
were fully considered, so the plastered
gutters were kept as they were with a
focus on its process (Fig. 15).
Skillful Techniques to Minimize Dem­
olition: Our last technical transfer was
made for the residence of Giang Văn

A national cultural property was restored by skilled Vietnamese carpenters.


Engineers were invited from all over the country to learn careful restoration work for a private house.
Fig. 13 The Giang Văn Minh Ancestral Hall
Lecture 5

After repeating simple restoration work for private houses,


an opportunity to learn diverse techniques was provided at important yet seriously damaged private houses.
Fig. 14 The residence of Nguyễn Văn Hưởng
72
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

A Western-style façade was added to the inclined roof front by the grandfather, who wanted his son to
become village mayor. The current situation was preserved due to excellent leak-proofing measures.
Fig. 15 The residence of Ha Bamgbing
Lecture 5
Toán, whose value as a cultural property was very This advanced technique was also transferred to
high. We employed an approach to minimize its commemorate their independence (Fig. 16).
demolition. Unlike the conventional approach where UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award for Cultural
each member is removed for repair, joined members Heritage Conservation Received for the Third Time:
are repaired in a very complicated manner in this new This technical transfer for the restoration of cultural
approach. When joined members are disassembled properties in Duong Lam Village is also highly es-
for repair and assembled again, joints are damaged. teemed by UNESCO (Fig. 17).

73

Sustainable Development of Hoi An Ancient Town and Japan s International Cooperation


Total demolition damages the building.
As the final stage, techniques were applied to partly restore the standing building by minimizing its demolition.
Fig. 16 The residence of Giang Văn Toán

UNESCO commended the Agency for Cultural Affairs, JICA,


the Japan Foundation and restoration engineers in Japan together with
the Vietnamese people involved.
Fig. 17 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award for Cultural Heritage Conservation Received for the Third Time
Lecture 5

II. Improvements for Tourism and southern Vietnam, following the designation of
Conservation of Townscape along with Duong Lam Village in the northern part as na-
Improvement of Local Residents’ Lives tional cultural heritage. Fortunately, Showa Women’s
Both in Hoi An City and in Duong Lam Village, University obtained an academic research promo-
the residents expected that more and more tourists tion subsidy from the Private Education Promotion
would visit and their income would increase. The Foundation in April 2009. In July 2009, the Agency
conservation activities and the development of the for Cultural Affairs concluded the “Memorandum
local economy were inseparable. Accordingly, along of Understanding on Cooperation between the
with these cultural heritage conservation efforts, Department of Cultural Heritage of the Ministry
from 1997 to 2003, we dispatched our staff to the of Culture, Sports and Tourism of the Socialist
Hoi An heritage management office as JICA experts. Republic of Vietnam and the Cultural Properties
We also needed to show a path toward economic Department of the Agency for Cultural Affairs of
development focusing on tourism while training ar- Japan—in the Fields of Conservation, Restoration
chitectural experts in the office. After the registration and Management of Traditional Settlements and
as a World Heritage Site, cooperation shifted from Buildings” for the organization of a formal inter-
the conservation of cultural heritage to tourism im- national cooperation system. Showa Women’s
provements, and JICA took over the lead role. On the University and the Nara National Research Institute
other hand, JICA also looked for collaboration with for Cultural Properties jointly started conservation
universities like us and volunteer organizations. The research in Phuoc Tich Village in the central part in
JICA Development Partner Project progressed fur- 2009 and in Cai Be district in the southern part in
ther as the JICA Grass-Root Technical Cooperation 2011.
Project, formulating a scheme to support the im- In 2011, our proposal “Tourism Promotion
provement of local life together with the residents. Project for the Three Areas of Duong Lam Village,
In addition, the Vietnamese government requested Phuoc Tich Village, and Cai Be District” was ad-
74 us to cooperate in the conservation of agricultural set- opted as JICA’s grass-root technical cooperation ac-
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

tlements in Phuoc Tich Village near Hue in central tivity. As for Cai Be, the conservation and promotion

Fig. 18 Duong Lam Village


Lecture 5
of tourism started at the same time. utilization of traditional festivals as tourist attrac-
tions. As for the ceramic renaissance, glazes were
Promotion of Tourism in Duong Lam and developed and put into mass production, which re-
Phuoc Tich through the JICA Grass-Root quired much time but is now bearing fruit. This has
Technical Cooperation Project continued through interpersonal exchange among
The promotion of tourism in Duong Lam Village residents under the cooperative relationship (Fig. 19).
implemented from 2011 to 2014 focused on the In the two villages, tourism started from zero
preparation of colored books and maps for tourists, along with conservation activities. The number of
the formulation of sightseeing routes, the develop- tourists has been gradually increasing. Now, Duong
ment of tour guides, guidance for restaurants, the Lam accepts 200 thousand tourists a year, while
development of souvenirs, experience in the agri- Phuoc Tich accepts around 10 thousand a year. Both
cultural village, and guidance for pesticide-free pro- villages have a heritage management office to control
duction. In the end, we applied for the UNESCO tourism, expecting to attract much more tourists in
Asia-Pacific Heritage Awards for Cultural Heritage the near future.
Conservation. We received the award and succeeded
in branding as well (Fig. 18). Simultaneous Progress in the Conservation of
As for the promotion of tourism in Phuoc Tich Residences and Tourism Improvements in
Village starting in 2011, we put effort into a ceramic Cai Be, where the Living Environment was
renaissance of the village, known to Japanese masters also Improved
of the tea ceremony as the vase production area of In Cai Be district in the Mekong Delta, there
the Namban ware, the preparation of colored books were many Vietnamese traditional houses around
and maps for tourists, the formulation of sightseeing the residence (Fig. 20a) for which we received the
routes, the development of tour guides, guidance for UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award for Cultural
restaurants, the development of souvenirs, and the Heritage Conservation for the second time. In front
75

Sustainable Development of Hoi An Ancient Town and Japan s International Cooperation

Fig. 19 Phuoc Tich Village


Lecture 5

of that house, Western-style buildings were addition- of a group of mansions in Cai Be.
ally built, but they harmonized very well (Fig. 20b). In Cai Be, we simultaneously proceeded with
Their value as Vietnamese wooden houses is greater tourism improvements as a JICA project. We drew
than that of Western-style buildings from the per- up plans to improve the canal and footway environ-
spective of cultural heritage. ments, and they were successfully realized (Fig. 21).
When the house, for which the award was given, Street lights, small wharfs, and signs were installed by
was opened as a restaurant, 60 thousand lunches were volunteers through JICA grass-root activities, while
sold annually despite its remote location. As a result, roads, bridges, and large wharfs were constructed by
we consulted with the residents about extended con- JICA experts in tandem (Fig. 22).
servation covering the neighboring areas (Fig. 20c). As a JICA grass-root project, both sides of a long
With the consent of the residents, we cooperated in road connecting a Western-style building with an-
establishing a system dedicated to the conservation other European-style building were developed and

a b c

Quiet’s residence (the Zhang head family), Sot’s residence (the Hang Family), Forming a consensus to preserve a group
a mansion in Cai Be a mansion in Cai Be of mansions in Cai Be
Fig. 20 Cai Be 1
76
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

Fig. 21 Tourism improvements in Cai Be were proposed to JICA


Lecture 5
maintained beautifully at low cost through an activity publicity in Japan, commemorating the registration
involving the residents called “Fence Contest.” This as a World Heritage Site. The Vietnamese Embassy
is highly appreciated as the first activity involving to Japan offered us unstinting support by dispatching
residents in Vietnam (Fig. 23). In addition, a cook- 20 students from the Hanoi Institute of Music, a
ing contest, souvenir contest, and food workshop large delegation composed of 60 persons involved in
were also organized (Fig. 24), and finally, the Cai Be commerce and industry, and many students studying
Tourists’ Festival took place along with PR activities in Japan.
(Fig. 25). In 2003, on the other hand, the Japanese Embassy
Although the objectives of the JICA project in to Vietnam requested us to hold the first Hoi An
Cai Be were tourism improvements and promotion, International Festival with Mr. Sue, as an event to
a questionnaire survey of the residents showed that commemorate the 30th anniversary of the establish-
even many people not involved in tourism were very ment of the diplomatic relations between Japan and
satisfied with the improvement of their living envi- Vietnam. A variety of groups associated with tea cer-
ronment, feeling that their surrounding environment emony (Urasenke school), flower arrangement, and
was clean and comfortable to live in. Bon festival dance, including the federation for con-
servation of townscapes, participated in the festival
III. Interpersonal Exchange among Residents in different ways, while the Director of the Cultural
Hoi An Became a Symbol of the Interaction Properties Department of the Agency for Cultural
between Japan and Vietnam due to the Speech Affairs took the initiative in cooperation. This festi-
of His Majesty the Emperor Akihito val changed its name in its second year to “Hoi An
When we supported Hoi An City, people got Japan Festival,” and has been held annually since
angry, repeatedly saying a joke that “they had a then mainly by the Japanese Embassy, JICA, and the
Japantown but no Japanese came.” Therefore, in Japan Foundation. The 15th festival took place in
2000, we organized an exhibition in Tokyo to gain 2017 (Fig. 26).
77

Sustainable Development of Hoi An Ancient Town and Japan s International Cooperation

Street lights were designed and installed Designed ferry quay (small) Signboard for tourists

Road improvements Landscaping by canal bank protection Traffic planning with cyclos
for pedestrians and motorcycles improvements
Fig. 22 Cai Be 2
Lecture 5

Award ceremony for the environmental Maintenance of the fence for the contest
improvement contest involving residents

A beautiful pedestrian road after the contest A bridge restored by residents for the small canal contest
Fig. 23 Cai Be 3
78
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

On-going examination of the cooking contest On-going examination of the souvenir contest

Food workshop by Japanese staff Displaying and selling souvenirs to tourists


Fig. 24 Cai Be 4
Lecture 5
Opening ceremony: Speech by the representative of A large audience of local residents at the night festival
the Japanese government

A large audience of local residents at the night festival A barge is used as the main stage of the night festival
Fig. 25 The First Cai Be Japan Festival (2013)
79

Sustainable Development of Hoi An Ancient Town and Japan s International Cooperation

Tea ceremony by Tanko-kai of Bon festival dance involving residents


the Urasenke school

Playing the koto Fair


Fig. 26 The First Hoi An Japan Festival (2003)
Lecture 5

At a banquet at the Imperial Palace in 2007, where Their Majesties the Emperor Akihito and Empress
the President of Vietnam was invited for the first Michiko, the Crown Prince Naruhito, and the Prime
time—and about 140 guests attended in addition to Minister, Mr. Yasuo Fukuda, and his wife—the

Iwami sacred Shinto music from the Iwami Commemorative tenth Hoi An Japan Festival
Ginzan Silver Mine, a World Heritage Site

80 The 12th Hoi An Japan Festival in Sakai


Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

Fig. 27 Hoi An Jana Festival held annually

The representative of the Hoi An Ceramic The representatives of the Karatsu and Bizen
Industry Association visited Arita, Kyushu. Ceramic Industry Associations visited Hoi An.

The representative of the Hoi An Ceramic The representatives of the Karatsu and Bizen
Industry Association visited the kiln remains. Ceramic Industry Associations visited Hoi An.
Fig. 28 The Thanh Ha ware has been reproduced in modern days
Lecture 5
Emperor Akihito gave the following speech: “I am Supporting the Recovery of
very delighted with the fact that cooperation is now Hoi An’s Traditional Industry: Kyoto Nishijin,
carried out in various fields with people of your coun- Imari, and Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine
try, who overcame the damages due to war and so In 2014, Prime Minister Abe referred to interper-
many hardships over a long period, and who are sonal exchange among the residents of the ASEAN
striving to create a vibrant country. … It is known countries. As the Asia Center was established in
that from the 16th century to the 17th century, our the Japan Foundation, we proposed a plan for the
merchants visited your port town, Hoi An, pros- development of communities through interpersonal
pering as a hub in the East-West trade at that time, exchange among residents.
and formed a Japantown. These Japantowns would In the past, Hoi An exported more than 50% of silk
disappear soon due to an isolation policy starting in consumed in Japan. The Nishijin brocade in Kyoto
the 17th century that banned overseas traveling of flourished with this silk. Director Takao Watanabe of
the Japanese people. However, in Hoi An, there still the Nishijin Textile Industry Association repeatedly
remains a bridge named Japan Bridge and Japanese visited Hoi An to cooperate in the rebirth of the Hoi
tombs, which are still taken care of by people of the An silk industry.
area. I have heard that Japanese experts cooperated As for ceramics, we requested Mr. Ohashi of the
in the conservation of the townscape in Hoi An, Kyushu Ceramic Museum, an expert of the Arita
authorized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and ware, to join the Imari team (Fig. 28). Naturally, this
the restoration of traditional wooden buildings. I am type of technical cooperation requires many years. I
delighted with such long interaction between your have heard that recently the ware has at last started
country and our country lasting until today in this selling well.
manner.” The Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine, which once sup-
Since then, Hoi An has been regarded as a symbol plied more than 50% of silver used in Europe via Hoi
of the interaction between Japan and Vietnam (Fig. An, was registered as a World Heritage Site for that
27). reason. At present, Superintendent of Education, Mr. 81

Sustainable Development of Hoi An Ancient Town and Japan s International Cooperation


Mr. Ho, fisherman from Cham Island, Mr. Hara from the Society of Silver Road
Hoi An, visited the Ota City fish market. Commerce and Industry surveyed the fishing
industry in Hoi An.

Mr. Ho, fisherman from Cham Island, Mr. Hara from the Society of Silver Road
Hoi An, visited a fisherman in Ota City. Commerce and Industry surveyed the fishing
industry in Hoi An.
Fig. 29 Enhancing the competitiveness of Hoi An’s fishery
Lecture 5

Haruo Oguni, in Oda City, where the mine is lo- in interpersonal exchange between Hoi An City
cated, is leading the interaction with Hai An City. and Matsusaka City, as well as the Nihonbashi area.
Further interaction, particularly in the fishing indus- Yesterday, Mr. Sue was invited by the people of the
try, is expected (Fig. 29). Nihonbashi area for interpersonal exchange.
Further, in Fujiyoshida City, pilgrims’ lodgings
Creation of the Japan Image: Japantown in operated by low-ranking priests built in a townhouse
Hoi An, Japan Bridge, and Mt. Fuji style like the ones in Hoi An, which was regarded
Shichirobei Kadoya (1610-1672), who worked as a component of Mt. Fuji registered as a World
hard as a representative of Japantown in Hoi An, Heritage Site, still exist. Associate Professor Chisato
was born in Matsusaka City. Recently, it was revealed Kogo of Kurashiki Sakuyo University, who wants to
that the vertical-striped textile produced in Hoi An, start an interpersonal exchange with the residents of
which Shichirobei sent to his home, became the or- Hoi An, gives guidance on tourism there.
igin of Japanese vertical-striped pattern used for in- We sincerely hope to succeed in interpersonal ex-
digo textile (Fig. 30). change with the citizens of Hoi An, where there was
In the early Edo era, light and non-perishable a Japantown, from different perspectives of Kyoto’s
clothing was distributed nationwide, which was inap- Nishijin brocade, Imari ware, Iwami Ginzan Silver
plicable to the food and housing areas. The Japanese Mine, Nihonbashi, and Mt. Fuji.
patterns designed under the influence of Hoi An’s
striped pattern made waves across the country. As a Interpersonal Exchange between Cai Be,
result, merchants in Matsusaka, such as Mitsukoshi which has Western-style Buildings Ready to be
and Matsuzakaya, grew into national stores having Utilized, and Yokohama, Kobe, and Nagasaki
their main stores in Nihonbashi. It is said that 60% of With aid from the Asia Center of the Japan
the merchants in Nihonbashi were from Matsusaka. Foundation, Cai Be, which has European-style
Today, Advisor Masuhisa Kobayashi, the former dep- buildings, established the first ties with a group of
82 uty mayor of Matsusaka City, has taken the initiative Yokohama Yamate Western-style houses. These
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

Worshiping at the tomb (Matsusaka) of Hoi An silk thread exhibition room


Shichirobei Kadoya, mayor of Hoi An

Visiting the Matsusaka cotton homespun center Hoi An silk loom exhibition room
Fig. 30 Japanese pattern originates from Hoi An!
Lecture 5
European-style houses are beautifully decorated by we invited people from Cai Be, and toured around
citizens of Yokohama working as volunteers. These Yokohama, Kobe, and Nagasaki together. We were
volunteers started helping the citizens of Cai Be dec- surprised with their hospitality as they organized a
orate the Western-style buildings. The citizens of Cai party with 30 or 40 guests. We felt that they were
Be also visit Yokohama for interaction. We feel that quite willing to operate their own Western-style
they are really influenced by the decoration of the buildings in their way by being stimulated by inter-
Western-style houses in Yokohama (Fig. 31). personal exchange with overseas citizens.
In Cai Be, where the cultural heritage restoration The details of the ceremony to announce the
work will start for the national cultural properties, national cultural heritage and the Cai Be Tourists’
restoration techniques for wooden private houses as Festival in December are being formulated by mak-
cultural heritage are indispensable. We expect that ing proposals from the Japan side and receiving ones
Saga community development NPO groups will from the Vietnam side. We are planning a sympo-
continue to offer their support. sium on the utilization of Western-style houses in
The conservation of settlements is really hard each city, a cooking class by the owner and chef of
work. In Cai Be, tourism improvements have pro- a restaurant in Kobe, an engraving print class from
gressed significantly, but it was finally designated as Nagasaki, and an introduction of Japanese culture
the third national agricultural settlement in Vietnam by Saga City and Showa Women’s University. For
in September 2017. The announcement ceremony the main venue, we are making preparations for the
and the tourists’ festival will be held in December announcement ceremony and a symposium to intro-
2017 (Fig. 32). For these events, we invited peo- duce Yokohama, Kobe, and Nagasaki to the people of
ple involved in Western-style houses built in Kitano, Tien Giang Province for the promotion of interac-
Kobe and Yamate, Nagasaki to join the activities, tion with Cai Be (Fig. 32).
in addition to the people of Yokohama. They were
pleased to accept our invitation. In September 2017,
83

Sustainable Development of Hoi An Ancient Town and Japan s International Cooperation


Deputy village mayor of Cai Be visited a traditional Cultural property in the Sot’s residence designed for
house designated as Saga’s important cultural property. restoration by an NPO in Saga

Deputy village mayor of Cai Be requested technical Cultural property in the Bo’s residence designed for
cooperation at Saga City Hall. restoration by an NPO in Saga
Fig. 31 Utilization of Saga NPO’s techniques for the restoration of cultural heritage
Lecture 5

IV. Conclusion “the first or the second space from the left.” This sup-
Challenges Left Undone in Vietnam: posedly shows that Vietnamese people once had an
Spatial Order Left in Original Humble Villages to asymmetric aesthetic of their own.
be Conserved Fortunately, our proposed JICA Grass-Root
Looking back at our activities in the past, we Technical Cooperation Project with a focus on the
wonder if the criteria of “the old, the most gorgeous, promotion of tourism in Nghe An Province was ad-
and the largest houses” were good or not. In the end, opted. The conservation of agricultural settlements in
the houses we conserved were high-class symmetric Khánh Sơn Village as a tourism resource is included
mansions influenced by Chinese architecture, such as in the project. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and
the ones in Hoi An, an intermediate port in world Tourism asked us to consider Khánh Sơn to be desig-
trade, Duong Lam Village outside Hanoi, where the nated not as national cultural heritage but as provin-
hero of independence was born, a group of bureau- cial cultural heritage as the first model in settlement
cratic mansions in Phuoc Tich Village near Hue, and conservation under the lax ordinance, which would
huge estate owners’ houses in Cai Be district in the be easily deployed throughout the country. Moreover,
Mekong Delta. Contrary to these buildings, the tra- during the traditional house survey in Khánh Sơn
ditional private houses in Nghe An Province, located Village, many people used rooms by calling them
between the old and the relocated capitals of Hanoi “the first or the second space from the left.” As a
and Hue, and in Binh Dinh Province, located be- result, we are putting much effort into conveying the
tween the traveling hubs of Hue and Ho Chi Minh, Vietnamese original sense of beauty, “asymmetry,” to
were not affected by the Vietnamese dynastic culture the coming generations.
influenced by the Chinese symmetric architecture.
The left side of the house, when seen from the out-
side entrance, was used formally by calling the rooms

84 Consideration of Rough Contents of the Cai Be Festival


Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

Vietnam-Japan cultural entertainment Vietnamese folklore musicals


Cooking class 1 Vietnamese cuisine
Introduction of streets of Western-style housing in Japan

Cai Be Introduction of culture

Badoc Stage
Cooking class 2 From Japan

Saga

Vietnam Japan Dynasty musical Farmer musical

Yokohama Vietnamese cooking Japanese cuisine Introduction of techniques


Mr. Naoyuki Kuniyoshi contest in Kobe Gensai to conserve cultural
properties Dan Bau
Nagasaki

Bahop Canal Night Festival

Kobe French cuisine Engraving print class for


Fruit decoration in Kobe anonyme
Ms. Takako Asaki streets of Western-style Bamboo pipes Japanese court music &
contest
housing kimono show
Interior decoration
Dinner

Nagasaki Vietnamese bonsai M Lily


Tokyo Chisatosha Drum Calligraphy, Noh,
Mr. Hiroshi Shobu contest in Yamate, Yokohama
Japanese archery
Water Access to the Cai Be Festival Sites
Both sides of the road
lighted with lanterns
Bahop canal events

Water sports event


at the canal

Saturday, December 2
All day long

Night festival

Have visitors appreciate the attractions of Kai Be


Have visitors appreciate the attractions of Kai Be
Fig. 32 Interpersonal exchange for community development with Yokohama/Kobe/Nagasaki
Lecture 5
Toward the Future of the Japan Consortium for for community development, etc. We will willingly
International Cooperation in Cultural Heritage consider concrete requests on the protection of cul-
The Japan Consortium for International tural heritage and its related issues, such as the im-
Cooperation in Cultural Heritage is an organization provement of life in your areas, and interpersonal
composed of researchers of the Cultural Properties exchange with citizens for community development,
Department of the Agency for Cultural Affairs who received from foreigners attending this symposium.
accumulate data on the protection of cultural heri- We also expect the Japanese people attending the
tage, engineers, financial support organizations, JICA symposium to willingly join the interper-
contributions to the enhancement of local residents’ sonal exchange activities that will take place
lives through tourism and other improvements, the in a variety of areas.
Japan Foundation supporting interpersonal exchange

85

Sustainable Development of Hoi An Ancient Town and Japan s International Cooperation


Discussion

Discussion Ota: I am honored to serve as


the facilitator for this discussion
Facilitator
partly because I am a mem-
Shoichi Ota
ber of the Subcommittee for
Committee member, Subcommittee for Southeast and
South Asia of the Japan Consortium for International Southeast and South Asia of
Cooperation in Cultural Heritage/ the JCIC-Heritage. I have been
Associate Professor, Kyoto Institute of Technology conducting surveys of the his-
Panelist torical cities in Southeast Asia,
Johannes Widodo, Clement Liang, mainly in Vietnam. But recently, I have been con-
Moe Moe Lwin, Eric B. Zerrudo, ducting surveys in Myanmar as well. Among the
Nguyen Su, Hiromichi Tomoda speakers today there are many whom I have met
several times during my survey work. Therefore, I
thought I would be able to anticipate the themes that
they would talk about. However, when I actually lis-
tened to their discussions, I was simply impressed by
the huge magnitude of the past efforts made by the
respective speakers, as their remarks revealed their
experiences and activities one after another like a
series of major storm surges. I know many of you
like discussions and I am not sure how well this
discussion will go within the set time frame with my
poor skills as a facilitator, but I will do my best and
appreciate your cooperation and patience in advance.
I have received many question sheets from the
86 floor. If you find that the sheet does not have enough
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

space or if you think of something in the course of


the discussion, please feel free to cut in, or I might
request an opinion from you. Your cooperation will
be appreciated.
Okay, so much for the introduction. Today, we dis-
cuss the attractive theme of “Sustainable Development
in Historical Cities of South-East Asia.” It is already
more than several decades since the introduction
of the word Machizukuri, or city development, was
claimed as being a Japanese word that was difficult to
Shoichi Ota translate into English. The meaning of the Japanese
He holds a doctorate in engineering and is a first-class word has changed over the course of several years
registered architect. After graduating from the Department and I think each country has a keyword similar in
of Eastern History and the Department of Architecture at
the University of Tokyo, completed the graduate course in meaning. With the lectures given so far as the basis,
architecture at that university. Served at Hanoi Construction I would like to ask you to offer keywords as supple-
University, the University of Tokyo s Institute for Advanced ments. The most frequently mentioned keyword in
Studies on Asia and Institute of Industrial Science, and Yale
University before assuming the post in 2014 of associate today’s lectures was “sustainable.” To that end, what
professor in the Kyoto Institute of Technology s graduate should be regarded as sustainable? And what should
program in industrial arts. His areas of specialization are we do? – These, I think, are the questions that come
architectural history and Asian urban studies. In addition to
working in areas including research on colonial architecture to mind. In this respect, I would like Dr. Johannes
and urban planning in Asia and comparative study of castle Widodo, the keynote lecturer, to tell us newly what
towns, he also has researched Vietnam s townhouses and
sustainability is and what this word means.
townscapes for many years. His published works include
Kenchiku no Hanoi ( Hanoi Architecture ) (Hakuyosha, 2006) Widodo: Okay. Thank you. I think the concept of
and others. sustainability is not at all new. In Japan, you have
Discussion
Satoyama or literally village mountain. You know next generation will be able to protect and preserve
very well how important it is to preserve the rela- our home for their own children later. That is real
tionship between humans and nature and how much sustainability. Thank you.
we harm nature and cause problems when we build Ota: As Dr. Widodo said, future-orientation and
something in nature. Therefore, we need to heal the education are among the keywords. I think we should
wounds we have created through human activities. It discuss more about the importance of education for
is obvious that this concept is very well embedded in sustainability, but before we do that, the things that
many religions. It’s not just Buddhism and Hinduism. we should help to be sustainable are, after all, people
Islam, Christianity and Judaism also talk about this and society, in other words, people and their culture.
relationship between man, nature and the so-called This is the major key point. I would like to focus
super naturals. The problems started to appear when our discussion today on heritage, which is non-ma-
modernism began, industrialization started, money terial, intangible but sustainable. Now, concerning
became the main focus of human life and we started this, a question has been asked from the floor, which
to consume more than we produce under consumer- goes: What is the relation between things that are
ism. Then, the balance started to collapse. The result more tangible? The issue here is the preservation of
is so-called global warming and so on. The loss of townscapes. I think we should firstly discuss how
ethics and that of empathy towards each other and the tangible cultural heritage has been preserved. I
towards nature has started. believe a lot of efforts must have been made for the
I think if we come back to the very basic under- physical preservation of townscapes. But it has been
standing of sustainability, we have to return to this discovered that there are things that cannot be saved
very basic understanding of why we are here on this just by preserving physical objects. This made peo-
earth and whether it is still necessary to sustain the ple become aware of the concept of comprehensive
life of the next generation. If our current generation machizukuri as something more serious. I want to
thinks that it’s not important to think about future point this out. I am afraid we do not have time today
generations and it is Okay to enjoy everything for to discuss that in depth, but firstly I would like to 87

Discussion
itself only, then that is suicide. It will lead to self-de- focus our discussion on tangible cultural heritage.
struction. But if we care about the next generation, Concerning this point, when I look back at your
then we will think more about future generations. lectures, I find the contents quite diverse, among
I used the word “family” at the end of my lecture; which, what the relationship between people and
this is to show how we think about our own families. the community and society should be like covers a
Are we thinking about the future of our children? If wide range of issues beyond my imagination. So, Mr.
yes, then we have to sacrifice our daily consumption Eric Zerrudo, I have the impression that you are very
today. “To sacrifice” means empathy. It means that much aware of the comprehensive relationship with
we care about how the next generation will be able society. You are concerned not just about the preser-
to survive. We have to pay attention, for example, to vation of old houses and traditional culture together
the future steps in any policy and program in relation with the citizens, but rather about how to ensure the
to the issues of preservation, development, sustain- stability of people’s lives, such as anti-poverty mea-
ability and so on that affect the next generation. We sures and residential measures. Mr. Zerrudo, is there
have to put more resources into our young people in anything you want to specifically emphasize or add
primary school, secondary school and university. We
need to invest more in education. It is not so much
preservation of the past, but rather that of life for
the future. I think that is my understanding about
what sustainability is all about. It’s about life; it’s
about livability; it is about human-oriented devel-
opments; and it’s about how to protect and preserve
our home. It’s not protecting and preserving other
people’s homes, but how our home can be inherited
by the next generation with less damage, and the
Discussion

concerning this point? formed there, and as a result, the lively atmosphere
Zerrudo: Hello. Okay, thank you very much for that of the city of Yangon, including the buildings, is well
question. First and foremost, for Vigan, I think it’s preserved. Will you please tell us, Ms. Lwin, in the
very important that we make it clear how they view future in the Yangon development plan, what type
heritage, even though the declaration is really on the of threats are anticipated concerning the downtown
built heritage or cultural site. Heritage for them is residents and what measures are to be taken in the
very holistic. Particularly, heritage has really a time community development in Yangon against the an-
continuum meaning; you talk of memory in the ticipated threats?
past, you talk of identity in the present, and you talk Lwin: Because of the drastic pace of development,
of continuity in the future. The transmission from we have experienced in only a few years a sky-high
memory to identity to continuity is – that is their increase in property and commodity prices, and rapid
concept of sustainability. changes. Under such circumstances, we started our
When you talk of sustainability, it’s not just the advocacy to protect and preserve heritage. To date,
dimensions or social-economic environment, part- we and other NGOs have been leading the initiative
nership and politics; sustainability is more of a value. to encourage people to pay more attention to urban
It’s the attitude of people to Vigan. It’s actually an preservation and be aware how this cultural heritage
intergenerational responsibility, meaning you have to environment is a valuable asset. People have learned
take care from your past to make sure it remains and responded through media and social networks,
in the present and eventually it carries on into the and deepened their appreciation.
future. This type of responsibility is not something It's not realistic, however, to assume that all the
imposed on the people. It has to be adopted by the community wants to live in the same place, in the
people. same building and in the same condition. There must
Because of this, we look at the concept of com- be a lot of private interests driven by the surge of
munity. In Vigan, there’s the direct community of property and commodity prices that happen in the
88 residents, there’s the transient community of tourism, development process. What we are doing at this
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

and there’s even the virtual community because of stage is approaching and working with the govern-
the very rapid development of technology. There are ment and responsible authorities to have a sounder
pressure groups even having a voice with regards to policy framework in place in city planning and man-
their heritage of Vigan, though they are not from agement procedure.
Vigan. Thus, there are concerns that the community Although not all of them, many people harbor
is becoming very fluid. But the primacy is really for sentiments in the past and towards these built heri-
Vigan to improve, alleviate and uplift the quality tage assets. I emphasize the protection and preserva-
of life of the residents of Vigan. The indicator for tion of built heritage more, because they have longer
the community when you talk of sustainability for lives than humans and survive a number of genera-
Vigan is really human development. So, you perform tions. People have their life experiences and memo-
development in terms of education and health, how ries associated with this heritage environment. Many
they are resilient in terms of climate change, and of have appreciated it, but some have a type of prejudice.
course, how they continue their traditions and prac- These were built during the colonial period. They
tices, at the same time earning from all of this how provide evidence that Burma once was colonized. To
to improve their quality of life. Thank you very much. fight against the prejudice, we have been slowly ad-
Ota: Now, we have a new topic of discussion: How to vocating that we are not maintaining the British co-
establish a relationship between the virtual commu- lonial legacy, but that this built heritage environment
nity and tourism. We have received some questions is associated with the struggles of our people for the
about tourism. We will discuss tourism and educa- country in the past as well as our issues, people and
tion later. society. The awareness that all of the members of
Ms. Moe Moe Lwin mentioned downtown Yangon society are central players will spread across society
in her lecture. I have visited the downtown area many if we keep advocating slowly and not bow down to
times, sometimes conducting surveys of the citizens. the pressure for development. It will create a sense of
I have found that a close local community has been belonging to the community for the people and they
Discussion
will not feel displaced. you come from a country and then you apply your
Ota: The discussion has made me aware of the im- behavior of that country in my country, it shouldn’t
portance of memories and shared history in the first be acceptable. One example is Bhutan. They impose
place. In this context, as Dr. Widodo suggested in a very high tax on tourists and therefore seek better
his keynote lecture, there is an idea of regarding the tourists. The tourists that are willing to spend more
city for which each speaker is working as a home or are those who are also able to appreciate things more
a family. This kind of attitude requires a history, or a and be respectful.
story shared by the local people. Dr. Widodo, will you Then, the fourth one, of course, is commitment,
please discuss the topic further and add whatever you that is, the commitment of everyone to consider their
want to emphasize? Also, I would like to hear what own city as a common city, like the city of Vigan, for
others have to say. example. The relationship among the mayor, people
Widodo: Yeah, there are actu- and community is very close, because this is a small
ally many examples that show town. A town like Songkhla, for example, which is
how difficult it is to have this also a very small town, is very different from a big
common narrative. You can- city. Even Yangon has become very, very difficult.
not ask everyone to agree to Penang is already a very big city. But a smaller town
one story. If the story comes has better hope, because everyone knows each other.
from the government, there This common understanding about our own home
may be some people, especially regarding how to treat visitors, how to create pride in
the young generation, who say, our own heritage, and how to gain trust among the
“Well, we don’t believe you.” I think one key point family members can be easily achieved. I think the
is, the number one key point is, trust. To be able to challenge is how we deal with a bigger city because
be trusted, the government has to be open, transpar- of the higher complexity. But, maybe, in a bigger city
ent and accountable. If the people trust the govern- like Tokyo, there are still many pockets of different
ment, then whatever government policy or whatever groups, for example, in the neighborhood. When I 89

Discussion
from the top will be accepted more easily by the walk from here to Nishi Nippori, then to Nippori,
people. That depends on the relationship with the and pass through a very small alley in the small
government. neighborhood opposite the Tokyo Daigaku and
Then, in terms of the relationship with its own Hongo, for example, I find a community across the
people, there must be a sense of pride. Let’s take the road. There are many, many pockets actually even in a
example of the people of Kyoto. They don’t really city like Tokyo that are still functioning as small vil-
need people from outside. They don’t even need the lages. If we look at the cities, even a city like Penang,
government. They can run everything by themselves. there are pockets that will be the starting point of
They have a lot of pride. They don’t even need the building many narratives. But we have to be open. It
recognition from UNESCO. This sense of identity is is not that just a single narrative is necessary. There
very important. are many narratives, and because there are many nar-
In Penang, you are very proud of your food and ratives, you have a bigger pool of identities and to
think that your food is better than Singaporean food. accept the bigger pool of identities and diversity is
Your laksa is better than Singaporean laksa, for ex- the key to trust, respect, commitment and pride.
ample. That kind of sense of pride from the popula- Ota: Dr. Widodo suggested that although Tokyo is
tion helps encourage everyone to buy the story. a big city, we can find clues to a common sustain-
Then, the third key point is, of course, respect. ability. Moreover, it was impressive that the trust in
Respect is important because we are dealing with the narrator was emphasized, probably because Dr.
tourists. If we ask the tourists to come to our home Widodo is based in Singapore. He mentioned the
and let them do anything they want in our living government, but it is not always necessary that the
room, in our bedroom or in our kitchen, then we narrator is the government. It is of course all right for
destroy our own home. We have to tell the tourists the narrator to be among the community members.
to behave. There should be some kind of limit. You Maybe the experts could provide some help in this
cannot just do whatever you like. For example, if regard. I also felt that it might serve as a clue for
Discussion

outside people to offer their opinions. in Kanji as Nihon-gai even today. This is the story
Well then, what about the activities conducted about the Japanese ethnic community that is no lon-
in Penang regarding common narrative and ger there. But why were they there in the first place?
sustainability? This is something we have to research into and share
Liang: Talking about the taste with others to unveil the true story. There is a lot of
of Penang food, it is cosmo- mixing up of stories; some say these Japanese were
politan, developed along with the people who came during the Second World War.
the harbor city history. People But this is not true. They were the 19th century im-
in Penang came from many migrants who came here, looking for a better life.
countries. We counted about 15 This is where we have to correct the past mistakes
different ethnic groups. Then, and share a more objective view of the history and
to add to the complexity, we its narratives.
don’t assimilate fully. Each group retains its own cul- Ota: What about Vigan, and Yangon?
ture, language, and religion. For example, if you walk Lwin: While we are talking
around George Town, this area is China Town, but about the heritage, the past
across the street is Muslim town and the opposite heritage, especially for the built
side is Little India, and we also have a Christian area, environment, there are a lot
things like that. Assimilation happened very slowly. of buildings in colonial style,
And nowadays, the process of assimilation has almost wooden houses and traditional
stopped. religious structures. They have
We don’t have a common history background. been there for more than 100
Each ethnic group has its own perspective and story. years. There have been people
What we want to stress is that we are not looking born during this time that have memories associated
for one story, but rather we are looking for multiple with these buildings. And there are those like us
90 stories from different perspectives. This is why we call middle-aged people who have enjoyed a lot of these
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

for different views, because we do not like to force the places and environment in their young lives as a na-
views on the others. tive and as a student or as a staff member. We have a
Especially in Malaysia, there is always an official lot to talk about or to remember when discussing the
version of the story written in the history textbooks. good old days with the heritage environment.
But nowadays with the development of multimedia, But I am also wondering about those newcomers
we have started to hear stories from other sides. I and younger generation. They have arrived very late
think it’s important that we don’t want the city to to Yangon, and they are living mostly in the subur-
have only the narrative that is forced upon others. ban area, maybe in a not very high quality apartment
It should be on consensus, as every community has or crumbling structures. But you see, they also have
its place in the city. A good example is, as Professor their own experiences and memories to treasure for-
Widodo mentioned, the fact that we have pockets ever. They also have their own stories to talk about,
in the urban settlements. One of these is the water or to remember. Sometimes, like us, there are people
villages, or the Clan Jetties. They are unique because who are very proud of, for example, our college, our
every water village has its own unique community. university as a very prestigious and very high-quality
They share the same family name and they have been entity. In the past decades, because of, as you know,
living there for a few generations. They have their the government rules and systems, the education
story, which we deem very important. This is part of level had been quite degraded and lacking in quality.
the story of the city, and we held many symposiums Sometimes, however, I can see through the social net-
on the history of the city and discussed them openly work service that young people are also very proud of
and shared with people. Also, my area of research themselves and their own environment. So, the places
is the minorities and includes the Japanese history of importance in their lives will soon become their
in Penang in the 19th century where – in the heart heritage narratives to talk about, to preserve and to
of George Town, we used to have a Japanese town hand over to the next younger generation.
called Nihon-yokocho. The road name is maintained Ota: It was very impressive in the lecture by Ms.
Discussion
Lwin that there is a clear difference between before are required to set up their own Facebook, Twitter
and after 1988. I think there are several people here and Instagram accounts. They have to express all
in the venue who were born in the 1980s and after. their feelings and their impressions about their city.
There is a gap between the two generations. And It’s here that we are able to monitor what their views
moreover, as has just been mentioned, there are an and what their impressions are, which will also let
increasing number of residents who came thereafter. policymakers know what the needs of the youth are.
Then, what is it that we should pass down? You have It’s maybe a change of platform; it’s also a change in
the history of more than 100 years ago, but cities terms of accessibility, but definitely, it creates such a
drastically change in a short time frame of 10 to 20 big impact with regards to how we shall navigate into
years. In such circumstances, how can we address the future. Thank you.
sustainability, how can we pass down the memories? Widodo: Okay. It’s a really interesting discussion
Speaking of storytellers, we should not just listen to about the change of generation. Sometimes, we for-
the stories old people tell us. I have come to think get that actually history is moving forward. What we
that there is a difference between those who know are doing today will become history tomorrow. If you
and those who do not know about things before are talking about cultural heritage, I think the post-
1988. What do you think? Do you think there is a war modern cultural heritage is equally important,
difference? maybe more important than colonial heritage and
Lwin: There is not much difference in appreciating or classical heritage.
learning about the past. They have things very much There are buildings like housing estates, hospitals,
in common, including intangible cultural things. For schools, marketplaces and community centers that
example, one of the great intangible things is viewing now are not recognized as cultural heritage. And so,
Shwedagon Pagoda because this is not just only for a lot of demolition is carried out even in Japan. How
the Buddhists or people in Yangon; It is also for the many city halls have been demolished for modern-
rest of the people in the country. This is an object of ization? Maybe, one of the few remaining examples
appreciation, the great architecture set in the city in is the Olympic Stadium designed by Kenzo Tange. 91

Discussion
a great position that people, even short-term visitors, Such heritage sites are for our children and their
will enjoy. Such viewing of Shwedagon Pagoda is also generation. Well, we demolish everything because we
something that we have to value, maintain and pass are in power now. We forget that actually we need to
onto the next generation. I think that some of the keep those schools, hospitals, markets or whatever,
values are not different, but, of course, the older gen- even public housing. We even think that they are not
erations have more memories to talk about in relation worth preserving, and we do not need them because
to the past of the cities. they were built in the colonial era. They are very
Zerrudo: Well, for Vigan, with regards to the nar- meaningful to people but we erase them.
ratives, before the major rupture prior to the World I think the discussion also needs to be moving for-
Heritage Declaration, there was really govern- ward. We don’t need to go back to the Hashima issue
ment-authorized dictated narratives because of the or even the Seoul Gyeongbokgung issue. But we
presence of very strong political families with strong really ought to talk about future heritage, about how
land holdings that were pervasive during the time in the socialist Vietnam heritage in Ho Chi Minh City
that region. or in Hanoi is shaping the new generation and how
After the change, when things became better for we preserve it and hand it down to the next genera-
the small city, many of these narratives were po- tion. Not many studies have been done on this issue.
sitioned or enshrined in official interpretation I think we need to push ourselves to cross the thresh-
platforms like museums. Vigan has around nine mu- old. Okay, colonial heritage is fine, classical heritage
seums; a very small city with nine museums, with so like Shwedagon Pagoda is fine. Yes, of course, we
many different layers of stories. But later we realized need to keep Shwedagon. But Buddhist monasteries,
that the youth, especially those we call the millenni- temples, mosques or churches are not the be-all-and-
als, also have their own impression of their city. end-all of a colonial town. We have to think about
For the past 2 years, we’ve been putting together a these post-war, post-independence entities that have
heritage project with social media. All the participants already become cultural heritage.
Discussion

Su: I think it is necessary for the immigrants, because Yangon is the center of vital
promotion of sustainable devel- activities in the country. We are actually struggling
opment to first and foremost with ever-increasing migrants from the countryside.
think about people. It is people The government has to deal with that issue. It’s a
that create cultural assets. It is great deal of trouble. There is a never-ending stream
people that protect and preserve of squatters and illegal settlements. How can they be
them. It is, however, also peo- resettled with housing that is good enough for people
ple that destroy cultural assets. to live in?
Now, Hoi An is in textbooks for the promotion of For the tourists, Yangon still is minor, I mean,
the value of Hoi An, Vietnam, as a cultural asset. compared to the cities in neighboring countries. As
Another thing that is important, I think, is to pro- a heritage advocacy group, we are convincing the
tect not only past values but future values and create government to develop a tourism prospectus. If the
a new sense of values. It is very important to respect cultural heritage in Yangon and its vicinity is well
the values unique to the area, I mean, to respect iden- preserved, Yangon will become a unique place to
tity, but the sense of value of diversity is also import- visit, and then the prospect of increasing tourism to
ant. Taking the example of Hoi An, merchants came help the city revenue will be stronger. We are trying
to Hoi An from a considerable number of countries to convince the government to include the aspect of
between the 16th and 17th centuries and established cultural heritage in the development policy.
a truly diversified culture. We are representing the Tourism is not a threatening factor for Yangon
government of the city of Hoi An and when we yet. We are not a world heritage site like Penang or
develop a new rule, we consult with citizens before Lijiang. I would say, a balanced kind of gentrification
anything else. We promulgate it as a law only after would help increase the revenue for renovating these
we obtain agreement and approval from the citizens. heritage properties. People somehow feel unsafe liv-
To summarize my remarks, I would like to spe- ing in those 100-year old buildings. But demolition
92 cifically mention two points. One is the importance will not be necessary if the maintenance work is done.
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

of consultation between citizens and policymakers. We tell citizens that heritage buildings are still safe,
The other point is the fact that not only Vietnamese repairable and better than recently-built buildings.
people but also people from various other countries, Zerrudo: For Vigan, we con-
including Japan and China, live in Hoi An. Although sider tourism as a good prob-
the cultural background is diverse, they seem to be lem. It’s a problem because of
accustomed to the local culture, which has given Hoi the sudden influx, the meteoric
An a very unique and diverse culture. rise of the number of visitors.
Ota: Thank you. Well, it was careless of me not to We surveyed many of its resi-
notice the passing of time. I am afraid the remaining dents and they have been com-
five minutes is not enough to wrap up the discussion, plaining that they couldn’t sleep
but Mr. Sue has just proposed important keywords. anymore because they close the
One of them is the relationship between the citizens shops late at night and they have to wake up very
and the government. early. All the tourists are already on the streets and
Here, I would like to talk about tourism as well. all the noises are resonating along the old streets of
Tourists are, as it were, short-term visitors. And the Vigan. Sometimes the shops are overcrowded. They
city you are discussing this time is a city of immi- don’t know any more if the tourists are paying or not.
grants. We may say that your city is a city of long- There are some problems: congestion, gentrifica-
term visitors. Just like the things that are happening tion, and loading capacity are just some of the things
in the city of Hoi An, tourists are moving in and we have to address. But it’s also good, because it has
staying. A wide variety of aspects will be developed forced many of the policymakers in the government
there. I would like you to discuss what comes beyond to be very creative and think about how to actually
tourism, that is, the relationship between the long- solve the problems and accept the tourists in a very
time and short-time stayers. cautious way. Then, all tourists will appreciate Vigan
Lwin: Yes, we have an increasing number of local in terms of heritage.
Discussion
The city of Vigan is already creating another city, international cooperation for
outside the heritage area, where there are modern city development, I will discuss
facilities. Using traditional colors, materials, external what came to my mind at the
appearances and techniques, they are developing new start of the cooperation from a
sites other than the core zone. They have already inte- few viewpoints. For example,
grated seven other towns, adjacent and adjunct to the the preservation of Duong Lam
core city of Vigan. The above mentioned seven other in the suburbs of Hanoi was
towns are already benefitting because of the over- started triggered by the speech
load of tourists. They spillover and go to the other by Mr. Do Muoi, General Secretary of the Central
towns for more hotels, more souvenirs and more ex- Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam,
periences. They have created a One Vigan Program, that went: It is Okay for Vietnam to become a mod-
which is not just for Vigan, but led by Vigan for the ern industrialized state, but the fundamental spirit
benefit of the whole region. It’s a good problem when of Vietnam is the mutual cooperation in agricultural
you look at it. Not only all our policymakers but also villages, which is the starting point of the current
other people are being creative so as to be able to take Communism and which we should not forget. To
on the load of more tourists eventually. achieve the above, I would like you to preserve the
Liang: I’d like to share something on Penang and its traditional villages as they are to pass them down
capital city George Town. Together with Malacca, to future generations. He asked us to provide co-
similarly inscribed into the UNESCO world her- operation, as we were successful in preserving the
itage site listing, George Town has gone through townscape of Hoi An. At that time, we did not think
the booms in tourism and a surge of tourists. For we would reject the request because the project was
example, last year we recorded 6 million tourist ar- to preserve communist heritage. Ideologies change,
rivals in Penang, and very soon the number will hit reflecting the values of the era. But cultural assets
7 million. But the town population is only 300,000. are preserved hundreds of years over generations and
Then we have issues with the carrying capacity, a big survive. Even when it happens that they are pre- 93

Discussion
problem caused by massive traffic jams, rise in shop served for political purposes, it should be regarded as
rents, and then, yes, gentrification is happening. We a wonderful idea. So, we wanted to provide interna-
do not have any good solution yet, but it’s something tional cooperation to eternally preserve the country’s
that the town planners and all stakeholders have to culture.
sit down together to work out. Some people like the On the other hand, what is important in pro-
tourism boom because it brings good business; others viding international cooperation is the counterpart.
of course don’t like it at all because they have nothing Who will be the leader in the promotion of the
to do with tourism and they see it as a daily nuisance. preservation of the city? This is a question that will
The opinions are divided. Where is the town determine the success or failure of the international
heading? Now, we are having more and more large cooperation. We need to be cautious in the provision
cruise ships coming to town. Every time they arrive, of cooperation. Actually, it was after a few years of
they dump 3,000 tourists down for half a day, caus- our activities of cooperation in Hoi An when Mr.
ing traffic jams. The tourists hardly buy anything, Nguyen Su started directly taking part in the town-
as they prefer to go back to their ship for food and scape preservation as the mayor. We had sufficient
accommodation. Do we need those kinds of tourists? national- and provisional-level support, but we have
Question over to you. discovered that the most important role is that of
Ota: Well, it’s about time we wrap up this discussion, the mayor who directly leads the administration. I
but before we do so, as a discussion is being held in respect Mr. Su. He has just given a presentation,
Japan on a similar flow of events, I would like to ask discussing very mild topics. But actually, he is not
Mr. Tomoda to discuss the possible involvement by at all an obedient person. At that time, he had just
Japan and what is expected of Japan, and then, we made his political debut, and he often said, “When
shall conclude this session. I offer my opinion, basically 90 % of people oppose
Tomoda: As I am the only one among the mem- it. But after 12 months, all will say, ‘It was good that
bers of this discussion working for the provision of we did as you had told us to do.’” People’s values and
Discussion

the tone of the comments of the media always keep popular. Within a year of the movie being shown in
changing. But I think Mr. Su has had a strong belief Southeast Asian countries, anti-Japanese movement,
that if the preservation of townscapes is successful everything against Japanese stopped and we started
for placement on the World Heritage List, people’s to see Japan from very different perspectives. I think
lives will be richer by accepting tourism in an appro- that the cultural soft policy approach Japan pushed
priate manner. Thus, although many citizens were forward played an important role. Japan is in a very
temporarily against the project, Mr. Su issued various good position and here in JICA, we are dealing with
ordinances to promote preservation, which has led to government-to-government bilateral cooperation.
the current prosperity of Hoi An.  We have the Japan Foundation, which is the gov-
Now, I have been lucky to have gained certain ernment arm performing the soft policy. So if you
favorable reviews on the activities in Hoi An and work together like what happened in Vietnam, in
received requests for cooperation from various com- Indonesia and even in South Asian countries, I think
munities, from among which I have selected for in the future, if the focus is really on the youth edu-
international cooperation the cases of the commu- cation, transfer of knowledge and capacity building,
nities where I was sure that townscape preservation by showing good examples from Japan: how Japan is
and tourism-based town development would suc- able to preserve their own heritage, revive themselves
ceed. And based on my experience in Hoi An and from disasters, and being resilient in whatever, which
in addition to cooperation in preservation, I took I call the “Oshin diplomacy”, it will inspire the other
advantage of JICA’s project for the improvement Asian countries.
of livelihood and support of community residents, Rather than following the steps of China with
Japan Foundation’s Town Development through AIIB, building infrastructure, creating a lot of prob-
Citizen Exchange, and local municipalities’ own in- lems, and not necessarily following the ADB or
ternational exchange schemes to successfully help World Bank approach, which is a very, very harsh
preserve townscapes and develop tourism in some top-down approach, we would develop more initia-
94 of the districts. The above consortium is participated tives to support exchange scholarships, cooperation
Sustainable Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia

by many organizations that provide support not and capacity building. I think that is what Japan can
only to preservation but also economic development do now to counter the damage created by big, big
and international exchange. Thus, a system that will players in the regions.
lead to successful international cooperation through Ota: Communities, education, passing down of
collaboration has been established. The consortium memories, tourism and the role Japan is expected
will consider your request for international cooper- to play, well, there are still many topics we need to
ation, if you make the request after building a good discuss. This is simply a break between sessions. We
framework. will definitely keep discussing during the reception
Ota: Thank you, Mr. Tomoda. Although we have gone after this discussion and after the panelists leave the
past the session’s end time, if you have something you stage, and there will be occasions when we will meet
must say about what you expect from Japan, please go at a different venue. It took rather a long time to get
ahead and tell us concisely. the discussion going and once it did get going, the
Widodo: A very short one. As a person from time was too short to successfully wrap it up because
Southeast Asia, when I am asked how Japan can of my poor facilitation skills. Let me express
provide support, I remember the “Oshin diplomacy” my appreciation for your kind patience and
in the 1980s. The story about how this boy and some your active participation today.
girls from Yamagata were able to survive became very
Remarks
Closing
Closing Remarks
Kunikazu Ueno
Professor, International Goodwill, Nara Women’s University/
Director, the Subcommittee for Southeast and South Asia of the Japan Consortium for
International Cooperation in Cultural Heritage

I thank you for having participated in today’s symposium. I am very happy to see
so many of you here.
I guess I am one of the few that have visited all the cities reported in today’s event.
At the end of the symposium, I would like to briefly summarize today’s forum and
make it my closing statement.
This symposium corresponds to the theme, “Continue steady interaction,” raised
in the ASEAN +3 Cultural Heritage Forum held in December 2015. Accordingly,
we made the symposium a site of interaction under the theme of “Sustainable
Development of Historical Cities in South-East Asia.”
The keynote lecture and the reports from four cities touched upon the protec-
tion of cultural heritage in historic cities and development of the cities unfolding in
Southeast Asian countries in detail. We have found out every country with ongoing
rapid changes is now facing a common challenge to harmonize activities to protect
cultural heritage with related businesses. Regarding the experience in activities to
harmonize the protection of cultural heritage with the development of cities, we 95

Closing Remarks
pointed out that, in spite of some small differences among cities, participation of cit-
izens and collaboration with them are important elements. Of course, no projects can
advance forward without the efforts made by the administrative bodies and experts.
We have also raised some future challenges to tackle. Expected hereafter is further
promotion of exchange of ideas and interactions among administrative bodies, citi-
zens, and experts in all countries.
Dr. Tomoda reported his experience about the joint activities in Vietnam con-
ducted by Japan. I would like to continue promoting some collaborative activities for
Japan to organize multiple interactions related to the protection of cultural heritage
in Southeast Asia. Although it is difficult to imagine that our experience in Japan
will be directly adopted to other countries without any modification, I hope that our
experience will be of some use to them.
I thank you again for sharing so many hours of your time with us today. I would
now like to announce the closing of the symposium.
International Symposium

Sustainable Development of
Historical Cities in South-East Asia
Organizer: The Agency for Cultural Affairs of Japan, the Japan Foundation Asia Center, and
Japan Consortium for International Cooperation in cultural Heritage ( JCIC-Heritage)
Date: 7th of October, 2017 (Sat.) 13:00-17:30
Venue: Heiseikan-Auditorium, Tokyo National Museum
In association with:
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Tokyo National Research Institute for Cultural
Properties, Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, the Japan International
Cooperation Agency ( JICA), the Sumitomo Foundation, the Mitsubishi Foundation, the Toyota
Foundation, the Foundation for Cultural Heritage and Art Research, the Cultural Heritage
Protection Cooperation Office, Asia/Pacific Cultural Center for UNESCO (ACCU Nara), the
National Federation of UNESCO Associations in Japan, the National Museum of Ethnology,
Japan, the International Council on Monuments and Sites, Japanese National Committee
(ICOMOS Japan), ( Japan Broadcasting Corporation), the Asahi Shimbun Company, the
Sankei Shimbun Co., Ltd., the Tokyo Shimbun, Nikkei Inc., The Mainichi Newspapers Co., Ltd.,
the Yomiuri Shimbun Co.
Number of audience: 177
Program
13:00-13:05 Opening remarks
Yoshiaki Ishizawa
(Chairperson, JCIC-Heritage/Director, Sophia Asia Center for Research and Human Development)

13:05-13:50 Keynote Lecture “Conservation is about People: Preserving the Historic Urban
Landscape and Sustaining Developments in Asian Cities”
Johannes Widodo
(Associate Professor, National University of Singapore)

13:50-14:20 Lecture 1 “Sustaining the Living Heritage in George Town,


Challenges of a World Heritage Site”
Clement Liang
(Council Member, Penang Heritage Trust)

14:20-14:50 Lecture 2 “Conservation of Yangon’s Heritage as a Tool for


Sustainable Development”
Moe Moe Lwin
(Director/Vice Chairman, Yangon Heritage Trust)

14:50-15:05 Lecture 3 “The Small City with Big Dreams: The World Heritage City of Vigan and
its Heritage-Driven Sustainable Development”
Eric B. Zerrudo
(Director, UST Graduate School - Center for Conservation of Cultural Property and
Environment in the Tropics)

15:05-15:35 Lecture 4 “The Conflict Resolution between Hoi Akn Cultural Heritage Preservation
and the Development in Contemporary Society ”
Nguyen Su
(Former Chairman, Hoi An Municipal People’s Council)

17:20-17:30 Break: 15 minutes


15:35-16:05 Lecture 5 “Sustainable Development of the Old City of Hoi An and
Japan’s International Cooperation”
Hiromichi Tomoda
(Director, Showa Women’s University Institute of International Culture)

16: 05-16:35 Discussion


[Facilitator] Shoichi Ota
(Committee member, Subcommittee for Southeast and South Asia of the Japan Consortium for
International Cooperation in Cultural Heritage/Associate Professor, Kyoto Institute of Technology)
[Speakers] Johannes Widodo
(Associate Professor, National University of Singapore)
Clement Liang
(Council Member, Penang Heritage Trust)
Moe Moe Lwin
(Director/Vice Chairman, Yangon Heritage Trust)
Eric B. Zerrudo
(Director, UST Graduate School - Center for Conservation of Cultural Property and
Environment in the Tropics)
Nguyen Su
(Former Chairman, Hoi An Municipal People’s Council)
Hiromichi Tomoda
(Director, Showa Women’s University Institute of International Culture)

16: 35-17:20 Closing Remarks


Kunikazu Ueno
(Professor, International Goodwill, Nara Women’s University/Director, the Subcommittee for Southeast
and South Asia of the Japan Consortium for International Cooperation in Cultural Heritage)
International Symposium
Sustainable Development
of Historical Cities in South-East Asia
Published March 2018

Edited and Published by:


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Email: [email protected]
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