In the fields of archaeology, art history and history, spolia have traditionally been studied as phenomena of the past. Today, the reuse of salvaged construction components and materials is primarily justified by its economic and ecological benefits, while its architectural and experiential qualities are much less discussed, if at all. Therefore, this article has two focuses, one more conceptual, and the other, more practical. Firstly, the article suggests extending the concept of spolia to contemporary architecture and discusses the usefulness of the concept in evaluating experiential values in contemporary constructions that make use of reclaimed parts. Secondly, it evaluates the potential of spoliation as a modern design tool in search of a more complex and historicity-based architectural expression. This potential is examined by defining the requirements for the extended concept and through analyzing examples of contemporary design. Although the main focus of this article is on contemporary architecture based on old building components, the topic also has obvious implications for heritage management.

The concept of archaeological heritage management (AHM) has been key to wider archaeological research and preservation agendas for some decades. Many universities and other education providers now offer what is best termed heritage management education (HME) in various forms. The emphasis is commonly on archaeological aspects of heritage in a broad sense and different terms are often interchangeable in practice. In an innovative working-conference held in Tampere, Finland, we initiated a debate on what the components of AHM as a course or curriculum should include. We brought together international specialists and discussed connected questions around policy, practice, research and teaching/training, at local, national, transnational and World Heritage levels. In this article we take the Tampere discussions further, focusing especially on the meaning, necessity, implications and prerequisites of interdisciplinary HME. We offer our thoughts on developing HME that reflects the contemporary aspects and needs of heritage and its management.

Art historian Juan Pablo Bonta has presented a nine-step model for analysing how the interpretation of architectural oeuvres becomes canonised. We suggest that in terms of the built heritage, canonisation and heritagisation are essentially the same process, so Bonta's model can be used for analysing heritagisation processes. This article testifies to this assumption by examining how the interpretation of historic Nordic wooden towns became stabilised in Finland. The concept was introduced in the 1960s to describe the Nordic urban heritage that was threatened by massive town development projects. The identification of the heritage category enabled the preservation of some remaining wooden districts. Examining this process allows us to discuss the role of expertise in the building preservation. In the case of wooden towns, experts' early recognition was a crucial precondition for the preservation of the heritage, which enabled novel generations to form a living relationship with it. Seen through the experts' writings, the heritagisation process of the wooden towns also reflect the expanding scope of the built heritage discipline. Based on our findings, the canonisation model is applicable not only to the individual oevres, as Bonta addresses, but also to broader built environments and, more conceptually, to heritage categories.

This article explores material culture and peoples’ engagement with built environments from the perspective of vernacular architecture, adaptive reuse and more specifically barn-inspired architecture. Departing from actual cases of conversions that involve material reuse and initiate a correspondence between various more-than-human actors and temporal dimensions, we join the debate around sustainable architecture. We understand sustainability rather as transmission than as arresting change, and we have taken into consideration a broad scope of heritage, including masses of unlisted and abandoned buildings. Adaptive reuse and other comparable forms of using and caring for the outworn existing building stock are practices intended to prolong the lifespan of material resources through reinterpretation. Through barn architecture, we suggest alternative approaches and concepts, such as mending and care, to both fields of architecture and architectural conservation.

Three case studies are presented that assess the post-industrial development of industrial sites in Ukraine. The comparative analysis is based on (1) the geographical location on the territory of the country (Ivano-Frankivsk, Poltava, Kharkiv), (2) the functional transformation of the buildings (from the initial functions to new ones), and(3) the impact on the further development of the urban environment (in urban planning, economic, environmental and social security directions). These sites are considered as post-Soviet architectural heritage, which have been overlooked by the society and positioned as dissonant and controversial. The stereotypical perceptions concerning industrial sites are examined in order to rethink their status in the future. The research shows that the question of industrial heritage is manifold and cannot be solved without understanding the complexity and uniqueness of each individual case.