Cultural Heritage and Disasters
David Alexander
Professor of Risk and Disaster Reduction
University College London
david.alexander@ucl.ac.uk
'Cultural heritage' is a term that describes a class of items that vary from artefacts of
all sizes to buildings, structures and sites. It includes paintings, furniture, books,
manuscripts, films, archaeological sites, churches, temples, natural landscapes, and,
indeed, any valued item that records humanity's inhabitancy of the earth and our
creative endeavours. The impact of major disasters upon cultural heritage can be
widespread and profound. Many of the items destroyed or severely damaged by
disaster are irreplaceable and their loss impoverishes and diminishes us. We have a
moral duty to conserve and preserve cultural heritage so that it can be handed on to
our descendants as a record of the continuity of life on earth.
Clearly, ensuring the safety of people and the well-being of survivors is the top
priority when disaster strikes. As a result, the need to save and protect cultural
heritage has often received low priority. Many places enjoy heritage that goes back
hundreds or thousands of years, but it may be seriously threatened by obliteration in
disasters such as earthquakes, floods and warfare. Damage may be extraordinarily
expensive to rectify, and the technical challenge of doing so may vary from
substantial to insuperable. Despite the imperative, cultural heritage is the 'poor
relation' in emergency planning: seldom mentioned, rarely treated systematically and
thoroughly under-resourced. Academic studies of this field (e.g. Spennemann 1999,
Crue and Clark 2010) are few and far between.
The world's attention to cultural heritage problems in relation to disaster has been, at
best, fitful. In recent decades, three events in particular have restimulated it. The first,
in March 2001, was the destruction by the Taliban by the Taliban of the 6th-century
statues of Buddha at Bamiyan in Afghanistan. The second was the looting of about
15,000 items from the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad, which took place in the
wake of the US-led invasion in April 2003. This led to a UNESCO emergency summit
on cultural heritage protection in war zones. More recently, from May to August 2015
Islamic State (ISIL, Daesh) destroyed parts of the ancient archaeological site of
Palmyra in Syria, which caused outrage in the world of heritage protection. Other
events have, of necessity, led to a mass reaction in favour of salvage and renewed
conservation. For example, the floods of November1966 in Florence led to the
submersion of thousands of rare and precious ancient manuscripts and books in the
National Archives and Library. In 1997, 1,200 religious buildings were damaged by a
three-month earthquake swarm in the central Italian regions of Umbria and Marche.
During this period, irreparable damage was sustained by the Cimabue and Giotto
frescoes in the Upper Basilica of Assisi.
The Cimabue crucifix from Santa Croce church in Florence, Italy:
victim of the 1966 floods. (photo: David Alexander)
The imperative for cultural heritage protection has two sides. The first is the need to
be able to acquaint our children and descendants with their past and thus broaden
their perspective on life. Direct contact with cultural heritage brings history to life, and
contact with culture enriches, humanises and inspires people. Secondly, cultural
items contribute to the 'spirit of place', or genius loci (Norberg-Schulz 1980). When
disaster strikes, destruction of genius loci can weaken a person's sense of
identification with a place and weaken the resolve to rebuild. Conversely, a strong
genius loci can inspire survivors to overcome the setbacks caused by disaster and
reconstruct, not merely functional environments, but also those that embody and
represent their heritage (Alexander 1989).
Some of the issues involved in this process are represented by the damage to
Christchurch, New Zealand, in the September 2010 and February 2011 earthquakes.
After the latter, some 85 listed historic buildings were demolished in less than a year,
largely because the cost of rebuilding, retrofitting and insuring them was considered
to be prohibitive. The Anglican cathedral, built over the period 1864-1904 and very
badly damaged in the earthquake, is the subject of a battle between those who would
have it demolished and replaced and those who would restore it. Meanwhile, the
Catholic cathedral, a neoclassical building of 1901-5 and equally damaged, is
scheduled to be rebuilt (Alexander 2012, pp. 6-8). There is no doubt that
Christchurch is in grave danger of losing a very significant part of its cultural heritage
and its genius loci. Optimists argue that it will create another, as the New Zealand
city of Napier did after the 1931 earthquake. Napier did not have a strong genius loci
but was able to create one, in the prevailing Art Deco style, during the rebuilding. The
renaissance of Christchurch may be a very positive phenomenon, but most cases of
serious damage to cultural heritage caused by disasters have ended in
impoverishment, not enrichment (Taboroff 2000).
Christchurch Anglican cathedral, New Zealand, after the 2010-11 earthquakes.
(photo: David Alexander)
It is a paradox that restoration of cultural heritage is a well-established discipline, but
emergency planning and response for protecting heritage is not. Nevertheless, it is
clear what needs to be done. Structural protection and retrofitting are needed for
buildings, sites, structures and landscapes. Hazards need to be understood and
prepared for. Emergency planning for heritage is feasible and its main tenets are
known (Alexander 2002, pp. 251-5, Alexander 2016, Ch. 11). One of these is that
emergency planning is labour intensive. This means that trained, equipped
volunteers are required, and activities designed to save heritage sites and artefacts
need to be prioritised in advance of disaster impacts. Another is that emergency
response will involve collaborations of a kind that normally seldom occur, for example
between curators, conservators, emergency responders and disaster managers.
It is a sad reflection that grievous losses of heritage items have been needed to
stimulate the kind of interest and initiatives that lead to disaster preparedness for the
heritage field. Nevertheless, there is now increased interest in protecting heritage
from the disaster on the part of bodies that collectively represent museums, sites,
libraries, archives, repositories and their staffs. As always there is scope for much
more, and new initiatives are badly needed before the next impact leads to a trail of
avoidable destruction amid the world's priceless heritage.
References
Alexander, D.E. 1989. Preserving the identity of small settlements during postdisaster reconstruction in Italy. Disasters 13(3): 228-236.
Alexander, D.E. 2002. Principles of Emergency Planning and Management. Terra
Publishing, Harpenden, UK and Oxford University Press, New York, 340 pp.
Alexander, D.E. 2012. A tale of three cities and three earthquake disasters. Tafter
Journal 50: 1-10.
Alexander, D.E. 2016. How to Write an Emergency Plan. Dunedin University Press,
Edinhburgh.
Crue, C.M. and R.J. Clark 2010. Missing links: connecting emergency management
and the cultural heritage industry. Journal of Emergency Management 8(4): 9-16.
Norberg-Schulz, C. 1980. Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture.
Rizzoli International, New York, 216 pp.
Spennemann, D.H.R. 1999. Cultural heritage conservation during emergency
management: luxury or necessity? International Journal of Public Administration
22(5): 745-804.
Taboroff, J. 2000. Cultural heritage and natural disasters: incentives for risk
management and mitigation. In A. Kreimer and M. Arnold (eds) Managing Disaster
Risk in Emerging Economies. Disaster Risk Management Series no. 2. World Bank,
Washington, DC: 71-79.