No abstract

The role of the audience in re-manufacturing built heritage sites and formulating their conservation policies has often been outlawed by the full control of the site authority through its singularity in formulating these policies. Excluding the locals from efficient participation in setting up these policies is usually attributed by the authority to the vague role that they would precisely play. However, the rich body of ICOMOS Charters and UNESCO Conventions has frequently considered the locals as "real custodians" of these sites, legitimising their participation in drawing up heritage conservation policies. This is due to the diverse cultural potential that can be made by them for the conservation policies of these sites. This paper investigates the precise role that the audience can demonstrate within re-manufacturing heritage and constructing its futuristic policies. It is indicated that the audience"s views possess different motives culturally, historically and touristically that enable them to efficiently participate in re-manufacturing the architectural heritage of their traditional environments. Therefore, the public"s deep experience towards their heritage issues can revive the site with some practical ideas stemming from its reality.

Today, the concept of built heritage authenticity is a projection screen for conflicting demands and thus a ‘contested field’. Short-sighted readings started to drag the concept behind different ill-considered treatises, in which some heritage aspects loosely outweighed other aspects. Archaeological perspectives that tend to freeze heritage structures in time, such as those that are privileged upon other contemporary socio-cultural issues, while political takes also overshadowed other epistemological prospects, and vice versa. Repercussions have made inclusion of what is regarded as ‘inevitable changes’ within the built context problematic as to the re-interpretation and thus assessment of its authenticity. Despite their possible momentary threat to the latter, these changes may add to the cultural value of the context over time, granting new potential that may instead boost its authenticity. This paper investigates the potential continuity of Erbil Citadel’s Babylonian Gate as an inevitable change within the site’s built context by studying the Gate’s controversial political impacts on the context’s authenticity. This study affirms that authenticity is a transcendental value of an open-ended progressive nature, which cannot be reduced to a specific period or properties within the historical chronology of built heritage. Hence, authenticity should be approached as a meaningful existential issue, while revelation of its essence and thus its dimension entails precise scrutiny of both the tangibles and intangibles of the context. However, to be part of its authenticity, any change in the context should be adaptable and possibly incorporated as a new value within its cultural strata, thus enabling progressive support for site authenticity.

This paper reviews the top-down vision of Erbil Citadel's local community role in two conservation processes conducted upon its built heritage, but with further concentration upon its current revitalisation process, since it is still taking place on the ground. It aims at demonstrating the problematic nature in valorising the presence and thus, the participation of the locals in the current revitalisation process, linking its latent reasons to the loose mechanism employed to attain its goals. It is concluded that the lack of experience of site authorities regarding how to link the touristic goals of the policy to the sociocultural potentials of the site has led to overlooking the role of the locals regarding the revelation of these potentials, and consequently to their marginalisation in the revitalisation process. The paper also draws initial findings about the potential causes that often drive local conservation processes to ignore local participation, recommending further investigation in this regard.