Assessing The State Of Conservation Of A UNESCO Nominated Heritage Site In Asmara

Conservation of historic urban heritage especially when the site it habitable is a difficult task.Some factors make conservation activity more complex.The ever-advancing technology,the ever-growing population and diminishing of land as a resource and the idea of considering conservation as an anti-development can be taken as examples of the conservation hindering factors.Lack of understanding of the difference between terms like conservation,restoration and renewal also presents its deal of problem to the conservation stakeholders.According to UNESCO’s documents,Authenticity,integrity and Significance are the three major terms to be understood and searched for in historic monuments to consider them for conservation.In case of Architectural monuments,the majority of people agree to conserve them as a sign of just remembering the past,the problem is when it comes to conserving the whole habitat and historic urban site since it may limit the modern lifestyle people think to have.Asmara is nominated as a world heritage site for the collection of modern architectural practice in the historic times of colonialism.This paper tries to find out the conservation of the urban setting those buildings erected,not the conservation individual buildings.In other words,it checks the conservation of the host environment of the architectural modernity in colonial times.Spatial morphological comparison of old plans with the current setting of the heritage site and a checklist of artistic design principles to study the impact of new construction in the historic site are used as steps of the methodology.To assess the conservation of the urban planning three successive levels namely the general layout,the street level,and setting around the cities major images are observed.It is found out that the general layout of the urban heritage is authentic,integrated and still significant enough.The problem found was only in the construction of some new buildings around landmarks that disturbed the harmony of the surrounding compromising the authenticity of artistic design principles of major landmarks to some extent.