Worldheritage Forum

Preview: ICOMOS Conference in Bergen, Holiday in Spain

Posted on 03. September 2004 um 12:05 Uhr

Next week I will fly to Bergen in Norway to take part in an ICOMOS conference. The conference is organised in cooperation with the Organisation of World Heritage Cities (OWHC), a network of cities all over the world, protected through the world heritage list. The organisation is working with regional offices. Bamberg is in the group of northwest Europe. The OWHC regional office for northwest Europe is located in Bergen. In May 2004 an interesting regional conference of the OWHC was held in Bamberg. The main focus was on the revitalisation of historical cities through the reuse of historical buildings. At the end of the year the proceedings will be published. Here you can find a short report of this conference in german.

In Norway I can hopefully talk to representatives of the city of Bergen about the local organisational structures concerning the topic world heritage. In Bergen there is one extra office responsible, although only a small part of the city is listed. So far I got a very positive impression of the organisation there. Especially the grouping of the available resources I find impressing. Particularly I am looking forward to an excursion, which is offered at the conference: A boat trip into a fjord where a power station from the 20th century is located. Norway is trying to promote it as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Straight after my return from Bergen I will be away for another three weeks with my wife and my daughter for a holiday trip to Spain. We try to reach the Basque country, if the weather will be fine. I will try to record my impressions with world heritage sites along the trip and publish it here. I will be back again on October 5th.