Memories and the City, Heritage and Urbanity

Abstract

Working with the already-there is still debatable and difficult to substantiate in most urban settings, and especially in a country still struggling with a strong Communist legacy. Despite the foreigners’ appreciations for the bizarre complexity of Bucharest, its structures are continuously being threatened by the authorities’ systemic ignorance and indifference towards urban heritage. This mindset is largely supported by the inhabitants, whose awareness of the value of urban heritage has been biased by Communist slogans and by the poor conditions of these buildings and places. Germinating for the way Bucharest has developed from then on, the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century buildings are being particularly threatened by this seemingly perverse continuation of the Communist demolitions, which holds heritage preservation in opposition with urban development in simplistic capitalist ways. Considering the multiplicity of memory, the erosions and sedimentations that make up our cities, this chapter brings to the fore and discusses the added value of urbanity—understood as mutual determinations between built forms and patterns of habitation—for defining and keeping the intertwining of conservation and development. Using ICT methods and tools such as GIS, 3D reconstruction, or digital images to illustrate the tales of old buildings and sites might open up the imagination and enhance urban engagement, thus offering more solid grounds for dialogue between inhabitants and politicians, the better to substantiate one particular decision or another, when working with the already-there.