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83 Heritage conservation has become a big issue in global society. More and more people are involved and consequently there is a growing interest in training activities in this field. Some decades ago there were few conservation training programs in universities and higher education institutions . Professionals were normally trained in their practical activities with the support of some short-term programs. The International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (iccrom) was a pioneer institution in offering many types of programs in various fields of specialization. Today it is different. There are many training activities in all specializations of heritage conservation and at all levels of academia and professional expertise. Educational programs in conservation have also spread to all continents and, with the exception of only a few countries, it is possible to find groups of professionals, with different fields of expertise, capable of setting up graduate-level specialization courses. Certainly, the World Heritage Centre of unesco was one of the main organizations responsible for promoting and providing the start-up resources for these programs, as was the case in Brazil and some other Latin American countries. The complexity of the training activities has also increased. Using again the experience of iccrom, we may take a quick glance of what has happened in the past two or three decades. Initially, iccrom provided courses in architectural conservation and specialized courses on the restoration of building materials, such as its stone and wood conservation programs. These courses aimed to train specialists in many countries, who are today leading experts in their local settings. With the spread of architectural conservation programs all over the world, iccrom has changed its scope to include the conservation of collections of objects, other materials (such as paper and textiles), and entire cities and territories. Today, one of the most important programs run by iccrom is Sharing Conservation Silvio Mendes Zancheti 6Challenges and Dilemmas in Heritage Conservation 84 P R E S E R V A T I O N E D U C A T I O N Decisions, which is focused on the process of conservation with many stakeholders involved in decisions regarding what to do when restoring/ conserving any type of material or nonmaterial object. My purpose in this chapter is not to provide an account of how conservation training has evolved recently, but to present the hypothesis that conservation education is facing a big challenge due to a shift in the conservation /restoration paradigm. The Big Shift Since the 1980s, what is understood to be an object worthy of conservation has shifted from architectural monuments and sites to cultural and urban landscapes. The scale of urban conservation areas may contain many thousands of buildings, public spaces, and even a wider natural or built environment. The enlargement of the field of action of conservation is the result of the social inclusion of different kinds of people in the planning and decision processes relating to cultural policy. It is the outcome of the enlargement of the political participation process of social groups that are gaining self-confidence regarding the importance for society of their cultural representation. A new concept of culture is being formed as a network of symbolic systems that make sense to groups of people belonging to many generations. Thus, culture and heritage are seen in a more pluralistic and diverse perspective that goes beyond the narrow scope of high culture. Part of this movement is the recognition that development is always culturally oriented. There is no culturally neutral development, as Amartia Sen has argued, and the links between heritage, memory, and social practice make conservation and development an inseparable pair in cultural , social, economic, and environmental policies. This does not mean that the dynamics of conservation and development may not differ during certain periods of time, however. When they do differ, the consequences may be disastrous. Culture and heritage are part of people’s daily lives. Those involved with conservation policies, plans, and projects are not only professionals, but may come from a broad spectrum of society. The challenge is to establish what heritage is and who defines it in this new context. Conservation policies and regulations rule over large urban areas and territories as is, for example, the case of the city of Rio de Janeiro, recently inscribed in the unesco World Heritage List. With a population of more than six million , Rio de Janeiro is one of the...

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