Road map for application of the HUL approach in China

Abstract

Purpose

This article is an editorial to JCHMSD's Volume 3, Issue 1 and aims to provide an overview to its selection of papers.

Design/methodology/approach

The article builds upon a previous editorial on the implementation of the new UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL). It discusses a research and training programme under development by the World Heritage Institute of Training and Research in Asia and the Pacific (WHITRAP) and Tongji University's Advanced Research Institute for Architecture and Urban Planning, in Shanghai, China, to help determining a strategy for the application of the HUL approach in China.

Findings

The HUL approach facilitates a structuring and priority setting of competing needs and demands for the integration of urban development and heritage management processes, which is perhaps most pressing in the current Chinese context of rapid and large‐scale urbanization. However, its precise meaning, and therefore its merit, is still poorly understood in China due to confusing conceptual foundations and interpretations, primarily related to the terminology of “cultural landscape”.

Originality/value

This research paper outlines a series of pertinent issues and questions as part of a critical path –a “road map”– for the application of the HUL approach, as promoted by UNESCO, in China and it outlines key areas for further research, in particular as concerns the development of a toolkit.

Citation

van Oers, R. and Pereira Roders, A. (2013), "Road map for application of the HUL approach in China", Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development, Vol. 3 No. 1, pp. 4-17. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCHMSD-01-2013-0002