(Un)wanted heritage in the cityscape – arguments for destruction or reuse. The case of the city of Kaunas
ENIn recent years, changing the conception of heritage protection, i.e., from heritage itself to a focus on people and their relation to heritage, has led to social aspects dominating evaluations. Therefore, the categories of the values involved begin to interlace, their conception and their significance is expanding and the values are becoming more closely associated with the context, in which the heritage exists. “Some fraction of the material culture produced or inherited by society (artistic as well as utilitarian) becomes defined and recognised as heritage through designation. […] Simply labeling something as heritage is a value judgment that distinguishes that object or place from other objects and places for particular reasons, and as such, the labeling adds new meaning and value”. In the economically strongest countries utilitarian heritage is starting to be valued as exceptional technical heritage, while in Lithuania the industrial objects and the military heritage is still hardly being recognised. This process is being stopped by a lack of financial resources, difficult historical memories and psychological gaps in education, and its one sidedness (protected sites are dominated by those associated with resistance and struggles for freedom). “The non-monumental environment was utilitarian, built to serve its present users and destined to disappear when it became physically or functionally obsolete. The cultural significance given to the surviving examples of historic fabrics today is not intuitively understood by the communities that inhabit them”. This is the reason why the suburb of Lower Šančiai (Kaunas, Lithuania) was chosen as the main focus of this paper. It is small enough, but stands very much in contrast to today’s city landscape because of its architectural and functional typology.These include wooden houses with carved details (mid of 19th century), wooden and red brick buildings from Kaunas fortress period (the end of 19th century), some industrial territories from the interwar as well as Soviet period relicts. During the last ten years large scale renovation and revitalisation processes started in this small suburb. So, it is full of architectural heritage objects, some reconstructed and adapted to new functions, but with lost authenticity, others abandoned and almost ruined old living houses, but with authentic details, but also large new markets with cheap architecture and huge signs near to almost destroyed industrial heritage objects. The main aim of this article is to show the connections between heritage objects and today´s users, to disclose the thin line between „unwanted” and „wanted” heritage objects. It is important to explain the term of „unwanted” heritage. It was coined during heritage specialists meetings which were held together with Polish scholars while trying to describe utilitarian (mostly military) heritage objects, which are in very prominent urban locations, but still are not granted heritage status. This is not only about the physical condition of the object, but more about psychological understanding of its meaning. The example of Lower Šančiai is rather uncharacteristic to Lithuania, i.e. the transformation of the military and industrial town part of Kaunas (Lithuania) into a site housing sources for implementation of contemporary social phenomena and even heritage animation5 activities. But all mentioned elements have invisible connections and directly implements the changes of Kaunas cityscape.
