Starts: Nov 23, 2008 18:00

Ends: Nov 25, 2008 17:00

If you wish to attend the conference please send an email to gabor.soos@colbud.hu
Si vous souhaitez participer au colloque, veuillez envoyer un email á gabor.soos@colbud.hu

A corpus of standard-setting documents , including charters and recommendations, exists on the subject of historic cities and their broader setting, which have been useful to guide policies and practices worldwide, with good results. However, conditions have changed and historic cities are now subject to new development pressures and challenges not present at the time of adoption of the last UNESCO recommendation on urban sites more than thirty years ago, in 1976 (i.e. the UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Safeguarding and Contemporary Role of Historic Areas).

With the current size and foreseen increase of the world's population living in urban areas, supplemented by insufficient policies to recognize and facilitate sustainable use of heritage assets, pressures on historic cities will continue to rise, making the conservation of historic urban areas one of the most daunting tasks of our time: problems range from traffic and tourism pressures, to high-rise constructions and inner-city functional changes.

Since the Vienna Memorandum that formed the basis for the 'Declaration on the Conservation of Historic Urban Landscapes', adopted by the 15th General Assembly of States Parties to the World Heritage Convention, discussion has focused on the concept of historic urban landscape. However, certain problems remain to be resolved, notably the difference between cultural landscapes and urban landscapes, the relationships between 'core' and 'buffer zones', the issues of 'authenticity' and 'integrity' in relation to living historic cities, the proper assessments of impacts on Outstanding Universal Value of WH sites in order to better manage urban landscapes.

A certain number of regional meetings have been organised on these issues, such as in Jerusalem (June 2006), in Saint-Petersburg, Russian Federation (January, 2007) and in Olinda, Brazil (Novembre 2007). The Budapest conference seeks to contribute to this reflection with particular emphasis on the management of historic urban landscapes and on the specificities of the Central European region. The aim is to deepen reflexion on these questions and to further refine concepts adapted to local contexts and especially to that of Budapest.

This two-day conference is organised in three major blocks:

1.	Reflexions and interdisciplinary perspectives on the very concept of historic urban landscape and its relevance for managing changes
2.	Comparative perspectives : analysed case studies from cities of the European region
3.	Round table on the management of the Budapest World Heritage Site.