Evaluation And Documentation In Cultural Heritage Conservation

Cultural Heritage Conservation is the specific field deals with cultural significance and uniqueness, with the understanding and assessment of values as its primary task. The purpose of heritage conservation is to preserve the cultural significance. In recent decades, the field has extended the cognition of heritage values in a wide variety, and situated value issues as the key point for the field to make a contribution toward preserving cultural diversity for humankind. The concept of values are also means for the field to integrate the interdisciplinary researches in conservation planning process, and to broaden the meaning of conservation, from technical intervention to a social practice containing public participation and considerations of cultural, economic and social contexts. Such perspectives of heritage values are also of benefit to the conservation work of China in both theoretical and practical aspects. Based on the background and incentive, the dissertation attempts to explore the methodology of evaluation, in the framework of conservation planning, involving the related theories, institution, and methods, also the relevant documentation. My main work is as following:1. To analyze the development of heritage concepts and value understanding in order to find out the elements about expression of heritage concept and significance. To exposit the concepts of culture, value and valuation, since they are always in debate, in the appropriate contexts for conservation.2. To discuss the procedure and tools for evaluation in heritage conservation and introduce the corresponding anthropology-ethnographic methods. To state the significance of authenticity in evaluation and make an overall review of evaluation-related literatures, and set forth some suggestions for the field of conservation in China.3. To compare the domestic institution, specific criteria of heritage evaluation with those foreign and study several cases of heritage evaluation for eliciting the advanced ideas and methods that worth for reference. Based on the comparison, attempt to put forward an evaluation procedure and a form that contains essential data, value typology and criteria, also some other suggestions for the practice of assessing cultural values in China.4. To exposit the sphere and principles of documentation relevant to evaluation, and compare the domestic involved regulations and guidelines with the standards and guidelines of the U.S. Followed two case studies and make some advices for the evaluation-related documentation in our conservation practice.