L'Allegorie du patrimoine or The invention of the Historic Monument (&translated by Lauren M. O'Connell) by Françoise Choay

Résumé du document

L'Allegorie du patrimoine or The invention of the Historic Monument (&translated by Lauren M. O'Connell) was written by Françoise Choay. She was born in 1925 in Paris, has been a historian of the theories and of the urban and architectural forms. She is an emeriti professor at the university of Paris I and VIII, also in Belgium, Italy and the United States of America. She is one of the most famous scholars of the contemporary school of thoughts with respect to landscapes and its links with built space (Wikipedia). In many of her books, she situates the description of the term "patrimony" through its history, through its distinct epochs, in order to criticize and analyze the current cult to the term "patrimony" and what it encompasses.

She has described this analysis and the patrimonial politics in her book Le Patrimoine en question, Anthologie pour un combat (Benoît de Sagazan). Choay chooses to fight against the current way the patrimony is being used for, indeed, her thought is that the contemporary globalization tends to turn the theme of patrimony into a critical asset for pure profit. In L'Allegorie du patrimoine, she defines the notion of patrimony through out several historical periods, starting from the antiquity to today's time. Choay highlights the evolution of the studies of the patrimony, pointing up parallel practices such as restoration, conservation or reemployment.

Extraits

[...] All this because of the touristic economy that has been put in place. The site of Auschwitz Birkenau is a great example where it has become difficult to fully feel a personal experience and to truly get what this place is about simply because of the mass tourism and the planed visit, structured visit, standard guides etc Conclusion L'Allégorie du patrimoine is one of the major books of Françoise Choay's bibliography evaluating the impact of globalization on the patrimony and the evolution of the society concerning the patrimony. [...]

[...] But far from being just an investigation, Françoise Choay actually gives solutions in her book in order to fight against these issues. She suggests three solutions, education, ethical use of the monuments, and the collective participation of the living patrimony. I believe there is a real need to manage sites and limit tourism. Visiting a site should be seriously considered by people who are truly interested in feeling something about the site, of discovering something, a place, history they feel attached to. The visit of a site should be a time for meditation and contemplation. [...]

[...] Appropriation process Even though the birth of historic monument came around 1420 in Rome, Italy, Françoise Choay makes us go back up until Antiquity. In fact, we can notice the admiration of objects from the classical Greece. Moreover, wars led Romans to bring back art objects and to collect them. It is then that a real market of art developed and can be compared to the modernité occidentale Nevertheless, Choay stops making this comparison when she evokes the absence of a framework concerning the destructions of edifices and objects of ancient art. [...]

[...] She criticizes this philosophy of taking all patrimony as the construction of the image of a human identity. It is a defensive attitude in reaction to a threatened identity, déstabilisation identitaire .”She denounces a narcissistic step although inherent in the human being. She then takes up an idea supported by Webber according to whom urban condition was about to being more defined only by pure immaterial relations, by the constitution of communities freed from any rooting”. This phenomenon is thus pulled by the “museification” sometimes too eclectic. [...]

[...] In L'Allégorie du patrimoine, she defines the notion of patrimony through out several historical periods, starting from the Antiquity to today's time. Choay highlights the evolution of the studies of the patrimony, pointing up parallel practices such as restoration, conservation or reemployment. Her reasoning leads to question ourselves about the phenomenon of ‘muséification' of the patrimony and if this phenomenon will grow even more under the effect of globalization. So, should we believe in this negative thesis or can we be a little bit more optimistic about the phenomenon? [...]