arthistoricum.net

The number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites is growing at an inflationary rate, and ICOMOS is hard at work identifying and filling gaps in the List. Describing and justifying the Outstanding Universal Values (OUV) of sites, like the writing of applications in general, has become a business model whose boundless success makes the potential for World Heritage seem boundless too. However, this does not solve the basic problem inherent to the concept: namely, that a World Heritage based on superlatives tends to be exclusionary and centered on elites, as well as foster competition (not least among the nation-states it is supposed to transcend). The use of superlatives to justify listing is, of course, not limited to the category of World Heritage, but is part of everyday conservation practice. The first two parts of the essay are therefore devoted to a critique of this approach. In the third part, possible alternatives are presented that take as their starting point the principle of chance. The fourth section argues that the everyday can also be found in the outstanding if one looks for other narratives, because the outstanding also emerges through everyday practices. This line of questioning leads to so-called Intangible Heritage, for which UNESCO likewise maintains a register, and one in which the everyday is better represented. Concluding thoughts focus on the question of how a critical and unifying „Global (or Glocal) Heritage“ could be conceived on this basis.