Dynamic heritage: the case of Havana

This publication is about a critical analysis of certain local situations which you can find also in other countries: the shrinking cities phenomenon. POLIS and their Italian partners, UNIFE, go through a sequence of “geography, place, history and culture” approaches. This publication scrutinizes a variety of issues, including established techniques and methodologies, when it comes to the reading of space and place, under specific social, economic, and political contexts. At the same time, they are opening up a spectrum of possibilities provided by all available sketches, drawings, etc., aiming at mapping and documenting regional realities and investigating the municipal potential. Gjirokastra is one of the most beloved cities in Albania and beyond in the region. The city with extraordinary historical values, and with unique traditions and landscape, is rightly included in the UNESCO list. Gjirokastra has always been, and continues to be, among the main settlements that serve as a reference for the development of southern Albania, and the cross-border area of northwestern Greece. The shrinking of living settlements in general is a concept that refers to the cities and towns that experience a sharp loss of population. Such loss could come because of depressing social, economic and political contexts in a given region or country, or because of massive (e)migration towards capital city or other and neighboring countries. As infrastructure and services in such living settlements were planned and invested to support bigger population, its own maintenance becomes a serious problem and very expensive exercise. The text discusses some practices and theories related to urban planning and architectural design in a UNESCO listed city, promoting a shared approach on the theme of Urban regeneration in Historical contexts. The practices and theories derive from researches and didactic experiences that the author has developed with other professors and students in Havana, Cuba. The first one with CUJAE Instituto Superior Politécnico José Antonio Echeverrìa was the international cooperation program PatrIndArch on Water Heritage (2013-15), in which CUJAE Cuba, University of Alicante Spain, University of Padova and University of Ferrara were involved. From this pedagogical experience came the opportunity to program an international Seminar dedicated to “Water, Architecture and Landscape in Europe”, held in November 2014 in Instituto Universitario del Agua y de las Ciencias Ambientales, Universidad de Alicante, where the author participated with professors and researchers from the Universities of Ferrara, Padova, Alicante, Coimbra, Bucarest, Valenciennes et Hainaut-Cambrésis, with proceedings published in 2015. The text is mainly derived from the PRIA research program “URB_HE Urban Heritage Conservation as vector of social equity”, in which the author participated (2015-17), and which was financed as an “Interdisciplinary research project” by the University of Ferrara under a call for proposals dedicated to defining new international fields of research. This research and pedagogical activity was related to the concepts of rehabilitation, regeneration, heritage conservation, which were considered like “moving concepts”. The emblem of this dynamic is the evolution of the concept of heritage: from tangible to intangible, from monuments to cultural landscape. Havana and its territory represent a privileged case study from which to observe not only influences of European and North American culture on the Global South cities, but also original hybridizations deriving from the intertwining of different practices related to urban planning and architectural design in UNESCO cities.