Search Results (244)

As an important tangible carrier of historical and cultural heritage, ancient city walls embody the historical memory of urban development and serve as evidence of engineering evolution. However, due to prolonged exposure to complex natural environments and human activities, they are highly susceptible to various types of defects, such as cracks, missing bricks, salt crystallization, and vegetation erosion. To enhance the capability of cultural heritage conservation, this paper focuses on the ancient city wall of Jingzhou and proposes a multi-stage defect-detection framework based on computer vision technology. The proposed system establishes a processing pipeline that includes image processing, 2D defect detection, depth estimation, and 3D reconstruction. On the processing end, the Restormer and SG-LLIE models are introduced for image deblurring and illumination enhancement, respectively, improving the quality of wall images. The system incorporates the LFS-GAN model to augment defect samples. On the detection end, YOLOv12 is used as the 2D recognition network to detect common defects based on the generated samples. A depth estimation module is employed to assist in the verification of ancient wall defects. Finally, a Gaussian Splatting point-cloud reconstruction method is used to achieve a 3D visual representation of the defects. Experimental results show that the proposed system effectively detects multiple types of defects in ancient city walls, providing both a theoretical foundation and technical support for the intelligent monitoring of cultural heritage. Full article

China’s rapid urbanization has presented challenges for sustainably revitalizing the historic and cultural heritage within its urban villages. Often, these efforts overlook the crucial roles of community ties and cultural values. This study focuses on 15 representative urban villages in Guangzhou (2019–2024). It tests the core idea that the physical layout of these spaces reflects underlying community structures and cultural values shaped by specific policies. Integrating this understanding into landscape planning can significantly improve revitalization outcomes. We used a mixed-methods approach: (1) Extended fieldwork to understand community networks and cultural practices; (2) Spatial analysis to measure how building density relates to land uses; (3) Sentiment analysis to reveal how people perceive cultural symbols; (4) A coordination model to link population influx with landscape suitability. Key findings reveal different patterns: Villages with strong clan networks maintained high cultural integrity and public acceptance through bodies like ancestral hall councils. Economically driven villages showed a split—open for business but culturally closed, with very low tenant participation. Successful revitalization requires balancing three elements: protecting physical landmarks in their original locations; modernizing cultural events; and reconstructing community narratives. Practically, we propose a planning framework with four approaches tailored to different village types. For instance, decaying villages should prioritize repairing key landmarks that hold community memory. Theoretically, we build a model linking social and spatial change, extending the cultural value concepts of Amos Rapoport to the context of fast-growing cities. This provides a new methodological perspective for managing urban–rural heritage in East Asia. Full article

This article explores the papacy as a multifaceted form of cultural heritage, emphasizing the pope not only as a religious leader but also as a living symbol and institutional embodiment of Catholic heritage. Positioned at the intersection of theology, history, and heritage science, the study seeks to bridge the gap between spiritual authority and cultural memory by introducing a novel interpretive category: the pope as a living component of intangible religious heritage. The research combines a comprehensive literature review with an analysis of papal documentation, especially papal constitutions. Special attention is given to public engagement with the papacy, as reflected in internet search trends during significant ecclesiastical events such as papal deaths and conclaves. The results indicate that the pope functions as a living link in the continuity of Catholic identity, with digital indicators revealing peaks of global interest aligned with pivotal moments in Church leadership. The study also defines the roles and functions of the pope as a narrative bearer, initiator, and symbolic custodian of papal cultural heritage. Overall, the findings reinforce the papacy’s dual role as both a theological and sociocultural institution, offering new perspectives for understanding religious leadership as a medium of cultural transmission and public relevance in a digitized world. Full article

This study presents a cross-cultural comparison of two fortified residences—Palazzo Farnese in Italy and Dong’s Fortified Compound in China—through a triadic analytical framework encompassing architectural form, symbolic ornamentation, and public perception. By combining field observation, iconographic interpretation, and digital ethnography, the research investigates how heritage meaning is constructed, encoded, and reinterpreted across distinct sociocultural contexts. Empirical materials include architectural documentation, decorative analysis, and a curated dataset of 4947 user-generated images and 1467 textual comments collected from Chinese and international platforms between 2020 and 2024. Methods such as CLIP-based visual clustering and BERTopic-enabled sentiment modelling were applied to extract patterns of perception and symbolic emphasis. The findings reveal contrasting representational logics: Palazzo Farnese encodes dynastic authority and Renaissance cosmology through geometric order and immersive frescoes, while Dong’s Compound conveys Confucian ethics and frontier identity via nested courtyards and traditional ornamentation. Digital responses diverge accordingly: international users highlight formal aesthetics and photogenic elements; Chinese users engage with symbolic motifs, family memory, and ritual significance. This study illustrates how historically fortified residences are reinterpreted through culturally specific digital practices, offering an interdisciplinary approach that bridges architectural history, symbolic analysis, and digital heritage studies. Full article

This paper presents a conceptual and methodological framework for using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to “deep map” cultural heritage sites along Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way, with a focus on the 1588 Spanish Armada wrecks in County Kerry and archaeological landscapes in County Sligo’s “Yeats Country.” Drawing on interdisciplinary dialogues from the humanities, social sciences, and geospatial sciences, it illustrates how digital spatial technologies can excavate, preserve, and sustain intangible cultural knowledge embedded within such palimpsestic landscapes. Using MAXQDA 24 software to mine and code historical, literary, folkloric, and environmental texts, the study constructed bespoke GIS attribute tables and visualizations integrated with elevation models and open-source archaeological data. The result is a richly layered cartographic method that reveals the spectral and affective dimensions of heritage landscapes through climate, memory, literature, and spatial storytelling. By engaging with “deep mapping” and theories such as “Spectral Geography,” the research offers new avenues for sustainable heritage conservation, cultural tourism, and public education that are sensitive to both ecological and cultural resilience in the West of Ireland. Full article

This paper investigates the cultural landscapes established by nineteenth-century German immigrants in South Australia and the southern Riverina of New South Wales, with particular attention to settlement patterns, architectural traditions and toponymic transformation. German immigration to Australia, though numerically modest compared to the Americas, significantly shaped local communities, especially due to religious cohesion among Lutheran migrants. These settlers established distinct, enduring rural enclaves characterized by linguistic, religious and architectural continuity. The paper examines three manifestations of these cultural landscapes. A rich toponymic landscape was created by imposing on natural landscape features and newly founded settlements the names of the communities from which the German settlers originated. It discusses the erosion of German toponyms under wartime nationalist pressures, the subsequent partial reinstatement and the implications for cultural memory. The study traces the second manifestation of a cultural landscapes in the form of nucleated villages such as Hahndorf, Bethanien and Lobethal, which often followed the Hufendorf or Straßendorf layout, integrating Silesian land-use principles into the Australian context. Intensification of land use through housing subdivisions in two communities as well as agricultural intensification through broad acre farming has led to the fragmentation (town) and obliteration (rural) of the uniquely German form of land use. The final focus is the material expression of cultural identity through architecture, particularly the use of traditional Fachwerk (half-timbered) construction and adaptations such as pug-and-pine walling suited to local materials and climate. The paper examines domestic forms, including the distinctive black kitchen, and highlights how environmental and functional adaptation reshaped German building traditions in the antipodes. Despite a conservation movement and despite considerable documentation research in the late twentieth century, the paper shows that most German rural structures remain unlisted and vulnerable. Heritage neglect, rural depopulation, economic rationalization, lack of commercial relevance and local government policy have accelerated the decline of many of these vernacular buildings. The study concludes by problematizing the sustainability of conserving German Australian rural heritage in the face of regulatory, economic and demographic pressures. With its layering of intangible (toponymic), structural (buildings) and land use (cadastral) features, the examination of the cultural landscape established by nineteenth-century German immigrants adds to the body of literature on immigrant communities, settler colonialism and landscape research. Full article

As first-hand testimonies and accounts of the Holocaust fade, scholars and artists alike have struggled to depict and contextualize the genocide’s monumental violence. But depicting violence and its aftermath poses several problems, including the question of how to recall loss without artificially filling in or effacing the absence so central to its understanding. In essence, remembering the Holocaust is a paradox: the preservation of an absence. Marianne Hirsch’s influential concept of postmemory addresses this paradox and asks questions about memorial capacity in the twenty-first century. This essay considers Hirsch’s postmemory in the context of W.G. Sebald’s 2001 novel Austerlitz, which uses a combination of prose and photography to engage the difficulties inherent in memory work without access to eyewitnesses. Through the interaction of printed text and images, Austerlitz subtly references Lurianic mysticism’s concept of tikkun and Tree of Life (ilanot) diagrams. The result is a depiction of memory that is both process-based and embodies absence. My reading of Austerlitz traces a Jewish heritage within the work of a non-Jewish German author by attending to a tradition of mystical thought embedded in the novel. This situates Sebald’s fiction in a much longer Jewish history that stretches out on either end of the event of the Holocaust. Structurally, Sebald develops a tikkun-like process of (re)creation which relies on gathering material scraps of the past and imaginatively engaging with their absences in the present. Images, just as much as text, are central to this process. Reading Austerlitz in the context of Kabbalah reveals an intellectual and artistic link to a Jewish history that, while predating the Holocaust, nonetheless sheds light on post-Holocaust memories of loss. Full article

Immersive technologies such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) have emerged as powerful tools in cultural heritage education and preservation. Building on prior work that demonstrated the effectiveness of gamified XR applications in engaging users with heritage content and drawing on existing studies in neuroscience and cognitive psychology, this study explores how immersive experiences support multisensory integration, emotional engagement, and spatial presence—all of which contribute to the deeper encoding and recall of heritage narratives. Through a theoretical lens supported by the empirical literature, we argue that the interactive and embodied nature of AR/VR aligns with principles of cognitive load theory, dual coding theory, and affective neuroscience, supporting enhanced learning and memory consolidation. This paper aims to bridge the gap between technological innovation and cognitive understanding in cultural heritage dissemination, identifying concrete design principles for memory-driven digital heritage experiences. While promising, these approaches also raise important ethical considerations, including accessibility, cultural representation, and inclusivity—factors essential for equitable digital heritage dissemination. Full article

The preservation of historical monuments is vital, especially in societies that do not have a rich written history. One method to ensure the preservation and transmission of cultural heritage is to reuse abandoned historical buildings. “On-site documentation” is fundamental for effective adaptive reuse. During this process, the plans and construction phases of many historical buildings are obtained for the first time. This study goes beyond theoretical boundaries and focuses on approaching the documentation, evaluation, reuse and preservation of cultural heritage from an operational perspective. The historical building in question was built as a primary school by Armenian craftsmen at the end of the 19th century in the town of Zara, Sivas. After changing hands, it became a mansion and is currently abandoned. This study discusses and proposes the buildings’ reuse as an urban memory museum by means of CAD-supported on-site analytical surveys based on classical, laser, and total station measurements. Full article

Cultural heritage preservation increasingly relies on data-driven technologies, yet most existing systems lack the cognitive and temporal depth required to support meaningful, transparent, and policy-informed decision-making. This paper proposes a conceptual framework for memory-enabled, semantically grounded AI agents in the cultural domain, showing how the integration of the ICCROM/CCI ABC method for risk assessment into the Panoptes ontology enables the structured encoding of risk cognition over time. This structured risk memory becomes the foundation for agentic reasoning, supporting prioritization, justification, and long-term preservation planning. It is argued that this approach constitutes a principled step toward the development of Cultural Agentic AI: autonomous systems that remember, reason, and act in alignment with cultural values. Proof-of-concept simulations illustrate how memory-enabled agents can trace evolving risk patterns, trigger policy responses, and evaluate mitigation outcomes through structured, explainable reasoning. Full article

This study investigates the value identification and assessment of architectural heritage in Fujian Overseas Chinese New Village. As representative 20th-century settlements of returned overseas Chinese, these villages demonstrate distinctive architectural integration of Southeast Asian and Minnan architectural traditions while preserving historical memories of diasporic communities, though systematic evaluation remains lacking. An innovative multidimensional assessment framework combining qualitative and quantitative approaches was developed, with spatial analysis and value evaluation conducted on 247 representative structures employing Kernel Density Estimation (KDE), Delphi method, and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Three primary findings emerged: (1) Spatial distribution patterns revealed core-periphery clustering characteristics, with Xiamen and Zhangzhou forming high-density cores (23.5% concentration ratio) showing KDE values of 4.138–4.976, reflecting historical migration networks and policy-driven site selection logic. (2) Heritage values were categorized into seven dimensions, with historical significance (0.2904), artistic merit (0.1602), and functional utility (0.1638) identified as primary value drivers. (3) A four-tier evaluation system quantified heritage significance through weighted indices, demonstrating 53.89% dominance of intrinsic value components, with historical and cultural factors contributing 29.04% and 18.52% respectively. Assessment outcomes indicated 23.5% of structures scoring above 80 points, particularly highlighting Xiamen’s comprehensive preservation value. This research advances traditional conservation paradigms through its pioneering “value identification–quantitative assessment–conservation and utilization” closed-loop model, providing methodological innovation applicable to similar Overseas Chinese communities. The developed framework fills critical research gaps in the systematic evaluation of Southern Min diaspora architecture while establishing quantitative parameters for decision-making synergy between cultural preservation and urban–rural development. By transcending conventional single-dimensional approaches, this study offers replicable analytical tools for differentiated conservation strategies and policy formulation. Full article

The “hand-waving sacrifice” is a large-scale sacrificial ceremony with more than 2000 years of history. It was passed down from ancient times by the Tujia ethnic group living in the Wuling Corridor of China, and it integrates religion, sacrifice, dance, drama, and other cultural forms. It primarily consists of two parts: ritual content (inviting gods, offering sacrifices to gods, dancing a hand-waving dance, etc.) and the architectural space that hosts the ritual (hand-waving hall), which together constitute Tujia’s most sacred ritual space and the most representative art and culture symbol. Nonetheless, in existing studies, the hand-waving sacrifice ritual, hand-waving hall architectural space, and hand-waving dance art are often separated as independent research objects, and little attention is paid to the coupling mechanism of the mutual construction of space and ritual in the process of historical development. Moreover, with the acceleration of modernization, the current survival context of the hand-waving sacrifice has undergone drastic changes. On the one hand, the intangible cultural heritage protection policy and the wave of tourism development have pushed it into the public eye and the cultural consumption system. On the other hand, the changes in the social structure of traditional villages have led to the dissolution of the sacredness of ritual space. Therefore, using the interaction of “space-ritual” as a prompt, this research first uses GIS technology to visualize the spatial geographical distribution characteristics and diachronic evolution process of hand-waving halls in six historical periods and then specifically analyzes the sacred construction of hand-waving hall architecture for the hand-waving sacrifice ritual space throughout history, as well as the changing mechanism of the continuous secularization of the hand-waving sacrifice space in contemporary society. Overall, this study reveals a unique path for non-literate ethnic groups to achieve the intergenerational transmission of cultural memory through the collusion of material symbols and physical art practices, as well as the possibility of embedding the hand-waving sacrifice ritual into contemporary spatial practice through symbolic translation and functional extension in the context of social function inheritance and variation. Finally, this study has specific inspirational and reference value for exploring how the traditional culture and art of ethnic minorities can maintain resilience against the tide of modernization. Full article

The heritage of public works is composed of networks that are strongly linked to the territory where they are built. With the aim of deepening our knowledge of the appearance and subsequent development of the transport and supply systems in Madrid, we present a study of the main hydraulic works, bridges and railway stations. Based on historical and technological documentation, works and networks are analysed and georeferenced in order to relate their traces and evolution to the city. These built elements define recognisable physical and cultural traces in the form and identity of the city. The documentation and technological and social analysis work was completed with a dissemination and heritage education process. The results show that the physiographic and lithological reality of Madrid, characterised by its intense link with water, has determined the configuration of the urban network and the expansion of the city. Bridges span obstacles and set milestones. Stations are spaces for exchange and connection. The water supply network feeds the urban grid. The city changes, but the traces remain. Urban growth has smoothed, absorbed or hidden the original relief and watercourses, but they are still present in public works and even in the collective memory of the citizens through the force of their cultural and social values. Full article

Urban color represents the visual skin of a city, embodying regional culture, historical memory, and the contemporary spirit. However, while the existing studies focus on pedestrian-level facade colors, the “fifth facade” from a bird’s-eye view has been largely overlooked. Moreover, color distortions in traditional remote sensing imagery hinder precise analysis. This study targeted 56 Chinese coastal cities, decoding the spatiotemporal patterns of their fifth facade color (FFC). Through developing an innovative natural color optimization algorithm, the oversaturation and color bias of Sentinel-2 imageries were addressed. Several color indicators, including dominant colors, hue–saturation–value, color richness, and color harmony, were developed to analyze the spatial variations of FFC. Results revealed that FFC in Chinese coastal cities is dominated by gray, black, and brown, reflecting the commonality of cement jungles. Among them, northern warm grays exude solidity, as in Weifang, while southern cool grays convey modern elegance, as in Shenzhen. Blue PVC rooftops (e.g., Tianjin) and red-brick villages (e.g., Quanzhou) serve as symbols of industrial function and cultural heritage. Economically advanced cities (e.g., Shanghai) lead in color richness, linking vitality to visual diversity, while high-harmony cities (e.g., Lianyungang) foster livability through coordinated colors. The study also warns of color pollution risks. Cities like Qingdao exposed planning imbalances through color clashes. This research pioneers a systematic and large-scale decoding of urban fifth facade color from a remote sensing perspective, quantitatively revealing the dilemma of “identical cities” in modernization development. The findings inject color rationality into urban planning and create readable and warm city images. Full article

The fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral accentuated the sense that this architectural building is a symbol of unity and identity for the population. This symbol extends beyond its French and Christian origins, reflecting the universal nature of cultural heritage, which has the extraordinary ability to unite people across nations, transcending ideologies, religions, and political divisions. The reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral marks a profound milestone in the preservation of cultural heritage, embodying resilience, restoration, and the enduring significance of shared human history. This research examines the impacts of the restoration of the cathedral at national and global scales through the implementation of questionnaires to visitors to the cathedral’s inauguration. The restoration process, which gained extensive media coverage, not only revived the cathedral’s architectural grandeur but also sparked international discussions about heritage conservation. Through an analysis of the questionnaire results for different factors, this study highlights the complexities of managing a monumental heritage of this magnitude in a globalized world. It reflects the ethical, financial, and social challenges involved in major restoration projects, using Notre Dame as a paradigmatic example. The paper concludes that the reopening of the cathedral is not only a triumph of physical restoration but also a testament to humanity’s resilience in the face of adversity. It serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of safeguarding cultural heritage for future generations while fostering a sense of collective responsibility. Full article