Local heritage and socio-cultural sustainability: controversies in the mechanisms of community participation in two cases of Buenos Aires cities, Argentina

NAHIR MELINE CANTAR; LAURA ZULAICA

La Plata

Simposio; ICOMOS Scientific Symposium, Sustainability: Cultural heritage and Sustainable development; 2018

ICOMOS Internacional e ICOMOS Argentina

The feasibility of community participation in processes that involve cultural assets are expressed in the international regulations on heritage and in the Letters of ICOMOS. However, in Argentina, the regulations and legal mechanisms that guarantee the effective participation of the community in issues related to cultural heritage, are still insufficient or nonexistent, affecting socio-cultural sustainability. This situation is transferred to the province of Buenos Aires and its municipalities. In this framework, the present work analyzes two cases of cultural assets in the cities of Olavarría and Mar del Plata, on which there is a strong social value; nevertheless, the participation mechanisms in the patrimonialization processes (Olavarría) or defense of the patrimonial assets (Mar del Plata) have been deficient. In Olavarría, the community considers a National Historic Landmark building, although the supporting documentation of the national declaration is diffuse. In Mar del Plata, the building analyzed has been declared at the national level as a Historic Interest Property. However, an urban intervention with a high environmental impact planned on the property could compromise its safeguard. In this last case, the public hearing, mandatory in environmental matters, was called by judicial means. The analysis carried out makes it possible to emphasize that the socio-cultural sustainability of heritage assets can not be ensured without foreseeing instances of participation that accompany community and urban processes at the local scale.