VVAA. Disaster Management Cultural Heritage. GCI. 2008

8/3/2019 VVAA. Disaster Management Cultural Heritage. GCI. 2008

1/32

Conservat ion

The Getty Conservation Institute


2/32

The GettyConservationInstituteNewsletter

Volume 23, Number 1, 2008

The J. Paul Getty Trust

James Wood President and Chie Executive Ofcer


Timothy P. Whalen Director

Jeanne Marie Teutonico Associate Director, Programs

Kathleen Gaines Assistant Director, AdministrationJemima Rellie Assistant Director, Communications and Inormation Resources

Giacomo Chiari Chie ScientistSusan Macdonald Head o Field Projects

Conservation, The Getty Conservation Institute Newsletter

Jerey Levin Editor

Angela Escobar Assistant Editor

Joe Molloy Graphic Designer

Color West Lithography Inc. Lithography

The Getty Conservation Institute works internationally to advance

conservation practice in the visual artsbroadly interpreted to include

objects, collections, architecture, and sites. The Institute serves the

conservation community through scientifc research, education and training,

model feld projects, and the dissemination o the results o both its own work

and the work o others in the feld. In all its endeavors, the GCI ocuses on the

creation and delivery o knowledge that will beneft the proessionals and

organizations responsible or the conservation o the worlds cultural heritage.

The GCI is a program o the J. Paul Getty Trust, an international cultural

and philanthropic institution that ocuses on the visual arts in all their

dimensions, recognizing their capacity to inspire and strengthen humanistic

values. The Getty serves both the general public and a wide range oproessional communities in Los Angeles and throughout the world.

Through the work o the our Getty programsthe Museum, Research

Institute, Conservation Institute, and Foundationthe Getty aims to urther

knowledge and nurture critical seeing through the growth and presentation

o its collections and by advancing the understanding and preservation

o the worlds artistic heritage. The Getty pursues this mission with the convic-

tion that cultural awareness, creativity, and aesthetic enjoyment are essential

to a vital and civil society.

Conservation, The Getty Conservation Institute Newsletter,is distributed

ree o charge three times per year, to proessionals in conservation and

related felds and to members o the public concerned about conservation.

Back issues o the newsletter, as well as additional inormation regarding

the activities o the GCI, can be ound in the Conservation section o the

Gettys Web site. www.getty.edu


1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 700Los Angeles, CA 90049-1684 USA

Tel 310 440 7325

Fax 310 440 7702

2008 J. Paul Getty Trust

Front cover:General Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1945 inspecting artlooted by the Germans and stored in the Merkers salt mine duringWorld War II (behind him are General Omar N. Bradley, let, andLieutenant General George S. Patton Jr., right ). During the war,the United States created the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives(MFAA) teamscomposed o cultural heritage expertsin orderto protect and salvage cultural sites in the war zone. Toward theend o the war, MFAA teams were given the monumental task ocataloguing and returning the thousands o looted objects to their

countries o origin. Photo:Courtesy o U.S. National Archives.


3/32

C

o

nt

ents

Feature 4 Cultural Property at War Protecting Heritage during Armed Confict

By Corine Wegener and Marjan Otter

Looking to the past, we can learn much rom the ways in which cultural heritage proession-

als have helped save cultural property at risk in war zones. Looking ahead, cultural heritage

organizations and proessionals should combine their efforts under the banner o the

International Committee o the Blue Shield and its affiliated organizationsthe most

effective mechanism or the protection o cultural property during armed conict.

Dialogue 10 Putting Heritage on the Map A Discussion about Disaster Management

and Cultural Heritage

Rohit Jigyasu, a conservation architect and risk management consultant based in India;

Jane Long, vice president or emergency programs at Heritage Preservation in Washington

DC; and Ben Wisner, a researcher associated with Oberlin College, the London School o

Economics, and University College London, talk with Jeffrey Levin, editor oConservation,

The GCI Newsletter.

News in 16 Rethinking Crescent City Culture New Orleans Two and a Hal Years Later

Conservation By Kristin Kelly and Joan Weinstein

In New Orleans, a number o cultural institutions were severely damaged by the ooding

and high winds o Hurricane Katrina. Ater the hurricane, all cultural institutions, physi-

cally damaged or not, were aced with a New Orleans that had a different demographic and

ar less tourism than the pre-Katrina city. The survival o the citys cultural and historic

institutions will depend upon their ability to adapt.

20 Wheres the Fire? Teamwork or Integrated Emergency Management

By Foekje Boersma

The gci has long worked to develop practical solutions to the technical problems aced in

protecting collections and buildings in emergency situations. Since 2004 the Institute has

collaborated with icom and iccrom on an education initiative ocused on saeguarding muse-

ums rom the eects o natural and human-caused emergencies.

GCI News 24 Projects, Events, and Publications

Updates on Getty Conservation Institute projects, events, publications, and staff.

surveyofconservationreaderssee page 30


4/32

Cultural ProPerty at War

ProteCt i n g Her i t age

during armed ConfliCt

4 Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 23, Number 1 2008| Feature

By Corine Wegener and Marjan Otter

aAt the end of 1943, as war raged in Europe, General Dwight D.

Eisenhower wrote to his commanders in Italy, clearly expressing his

intent to spare cultural property rom damage whenever possible:

Today we are fghting in a country which has contributed a

great deal to our cultural inheritance, a country rich in

monuments which by their creation helped and now in their

old age illustrate the growth o the civilization which is ours.

We are bound to respect those monuments so ar as war allows.

This statement and other protective measures or cultural

property were a direct result o concerted efforts by governments,

the military, and cultural heritage proessionals o many o the

Allied nations to protect Europes cultural heritage during WorldWar II. Nonetheless, countless icons o our shared cultural heritage

were damaged, looted, or destroyed during the conict. In response,

the nations o the world gathered in the Netherlands to drat the

1954 Hague Convention or the Protection o Cultural Property in

the Event o Armed Conict, in an attempt to ensure that such

losses o cultural heritage during war would never again occur.

However, recent conicts in Bosnia, Aghanistan, and Iraq

demonstrate that cultural heritage remains vulnerable during armed

conict. In recent years, in Sarajevo the national library was burned,

and the acade o the National Museum o Bosnia and Herzegovinawas pockmarked by snipers; in Aghanistan, objects in the Kabul

Museum were deaced, destroyed, or looted and sold abroad, and

the great Buddhas at Bamiyan were obliterated; and in April 2003,

the Iraq National Museum was looted, and the ongoing lack o secu-

rity elsewhere in the country allows the continued looting and

destruction o thousands o archaeological sites.

There is much we can learn rom those instances in the past

in which some collecting institutionsthrough careul planning

successully protected all or most o their collections during armed

conict. We can also learn rom the ways in which cultural proes-

sionals have helped save cultural property at risk in war zones.

Looking to the uture, cultural heritage organizations and proes-

sionals should combine their efforts under the banner o the

International Committee o the Blue Shield and its affiliated

organizationsinspired by the 1954 Hague Conventionas the

most effective mechanism or the protection o cultural property

during armed conict.

Lessons Learned rom WWII

Observers o history know that cultural property usually suffers

during armed conict. To the victor go the spoils was the attitude

up until the end o the Napoleonic Wars. By World War II, there

were internationally accepted norms prohibiting the looting ocultural property during war.

1However, under Hitler, the Nazis

devised the most organized art looting operation ever, stealing

cultural treasures rom museums, churches, and private individuals

in every country they occupied. While both sides in this war were

responsible or the destruction o countless historic buildings,

monuments, and cultural heritage sites during military operations,

many Allied nations also mounted some o the most comprehensive

efforts ever attempted or the protection o cultural heritage

during war.

In the mid-1930s, many European museums and culturalinstitutions began long-range planning or war by making lists

o important objects, coordinating transportation via truck or rail,

and scouting appropriate offsite storage locations. Museums

stockpiled construction materials or crates and or reinorcing their

buildings against bombing.

When war fnally arrived, many museum staffevacuated their

institutions, sending their most precious objects away or saekeep-

1. During World War II, the Hague Conventions on the Laws and Customs o War

on Land, 1899 (Hague II) and 1907 (Hague IV) governed the conduct o the war.

Seizure o cultural property was clearly orbidden.


5/32

Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 23, Number 1 2008| Feature 5

alongside those rom the United States. Toward the end o the war,

when Allied orces discovered repositories o thousands o objects

looted by the Nazis, the mfaa teams were given a new and monu-

mental task: removal o these objects to various collecting points or

cataloguing and restitution to their countries o origin. The mfaa

teams (recently recognized by the U.S. Congress or saving thou-

sands o works o cultural heritage) were part o the most effective

effort ever undertaken by the military to protect cultural property

during wartime.

These extraordinary examples o how, in the past, cultural

heritage proessionals prepared or war and lobbied their govern-

ments to protect cultural property during war can serve as guides or

todays proessionals on ways to protect collections during and aterconict in the uture.

Cultural Property in a Twenty-First-Century War

While World War II provides multiple instances o museums

preparing or major armed conict, more recent examples o actions

by other courageous colleagues in areas o conict are also instruc-

tive. The looting o the Iraq National Museum is a case in point.

The press initially reported that more than one hundred seventy

thousand objects, the entire contents o the museum, had been

looted; it was later learned that there were actually closer to hal

ing. At the Louvre in Paris, the galleries were emptied. In Amster-

dam, Rembrandts amous Night Watch was rolled up and hidden.

In Italy, Michelangelos Davidwas bricked up in its own tower, and

workmen built a protective structure in situ around the Arch o

Constantine. Da Vincis The Last Supperresco received a wooden

wall reinorced with sandbags, saving it rom a stray bomb that later

destroyed much o the church. While museums in the United States

remained open, many institutions, including the Metropolitan

Museum o Art and the National Gallery, moved their most

important objects to remote sites.

From the beginning o the war, cultural heritage proessionals

and organizations in several Allied countries lobbied or compre-

hensive programs to protect cultural property, both at home andabroad. One such U.S. committee helped create the Monuments,

Fine Arts, and Archives (mfaa) teams within the U.S. Army Civil

Affairs Division. The mfaa teamsmostly composed o museum

proessionals, art historians, and other cultural heritage experts

already serving in the military in another capacitywere respon-

sible or identiying important cultural sites on military maps so that

pilots and artillery could avoid them. mfaa officers ollowed the

battle, entering liberated towns just behind the combat orces in

order to protect and salvage cultural sites. Several Allied nations

also organized a small number omfaa-type troops who worked

A museum guard standing amongempty rames at the Louvre Museum,Paris. During World War II, manymuseums throughout Europe removedtheir collections or saekeeping.Photo:Courtesy o U.S. National

Archives.

Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives(MFAA) Ocer James Rorimer (rearcenter) supervises U.S. soldierscarrying paintings rom Neuschwan-stein Castle in Germany. MFAA teamswere part o an eective militaryeort to protect and recover culturalproperty during wartime. (Prior tothe war, Rorimer was a curator at theMetropolitan Museum o Art in NewYork; he went on to become its

director.) Photo:Courtesy o U.S.National Archives.


6/32

6 Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 23 , Number 1 2008| Feature

a million objects in the collection, many o which had not been

catalogued or were deposited there rom other regional museums

or protection. In act, only about fteen thousand objects were

taken. Key staffmembers removed and hid most o the collectionin the weeks prior to the U.S. invasion. While the losses were tragic,

they were a raction o what they might have been had the staffnot

careully planned and executed an evacuation o the galleries.

In addition, staffused cement blocks to close up several entrances

and storage areas to hinder looters, surrounded dozens o immov-

able sculptures and riezes with oam to protect against bomb

damage, and sandbagged the oor o the Assyrian Gallery to protect

the large stone riezes in case they ell during bombing. Finally, well

in advance o the invasion, the staffpainted the international symbol

or the protection o cultural property, the blue shield, on the rooo the museum.

While these precautions were instrumental in saving much

o the collection, small oversights proved disastrous. For example,

the lack o a key control system allowed keys or secure storage to

all into the hands o the looters, giving them access to areas they

might not otherwise have reached. More than our thousand ancient

cylinder seals were lost rom one storage area alone. Comprehensive

emergency planning on the part o museum staffcan prevent such

oversights.

The Coalition Forces in Iraq did not have the kind omfaa

units that were present during World War II. While most countries

still have Civil Affairs units, ew cultural heritage personnel serve in

todays military, leaving most military commanders without thisexpert advice. Furthermore, units receive little training on cultural

property protection beyond instructions to avoid damage during

military operations. Some European nations maintain Civil-

Military Cooperation units, including a small orce o reservists

who are cultural heritage proessionals; however, their deployment

is oten hindered by their nations rules regarding entry into combat

areas. One result o these limitations was that in the spring and

The main lobby o the Iraq NationalMuseum, May 2007. As a precautionagainst anticipated looting, the rontdoors (at let) were sealed withcement blocks prior to the U.S.invasion in April 2003. Unortunately,looters were able to enter parts o themuseum through other ways. However,key sta members hid most o themuseums collectiona measurethat was instrumental in saving a

signicant portion o the collection.Photo:Corine Wegener.

Damaged lion sculpture rom Tel Harmalat the Iraq National Museum, May 2003.Looters, unable to remove the sculpture,smashed its head. A matching sculpture,covered in oam padding, was let intact.Photo:Corine Wegener.

Smashed Roman sculptures rom theancient site o al Hatra at the IraqNational Museum, May 2003. Here oampadding did not protect these sculptures,which were purposely destroyed bylooters. Photo:Corine Wegener.


7/32

Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 23, Number 1 2008| Feature 7

summer o2003, the team o cultural heritage proessionals

working with the staffo the Iraq National Museum was very small,

including a ew government civilians and military personnel (none

o whom were conservators) rom the United States, the United

Kingdom, Italy, and the Netherlands.

Ater the looting, Iraq National Museum staffhad to deal with

damaged objects let behind. What looters could not carry away,

they oten smashed, either out o malice or to obtain salable rag-

ments. The museum conservation staffhad little or no advanced

conservation knowledge (United Nations sanctions had long

prevented staffrom receiving training), and broken objects lan-

guished in the conservation lab. Many cultural heritage proession-

alsincluding conservators, archaeologists, and curatorsvolun-

teered to assist but were denied entry because they were not part o

their countrys ministry o state team or part o a nongovernmental

aid organization, which could enter the country with ease and set up

operations. The ew cultural proessionals who entered Iraq did so

using temporary press passes, or they were brought in by theirgovernments to make assessmentsnot to perorm conservation.

(It would be nearly a year beore the Italian government sent

conservators to provide training or the Iraqi museum staff.)

To avoid these problems in the uture, cultural heritage

proessionals need to work collaboratively. The obvious and best

way to do this is to work within a nongovernmental organization

modeled on humanitarian aid organizations like Doctors Without

Borders or the International Committee o the Red Crossin other

words, the International Committee o the Blue Shield (icbs) and its

constituent organizations.

The Blue Shield Committees

The icbs was inspired by the 1954 Hague Convention, which was

the frst international treaty ocused exclusively on the protection o

cultural heritage in the event o armed conict. States Parties to the

Hague Convention are a network o more than one hundred nations

that have agreed to mitigate the consequences o armed conict and

to take preventive measures during peacetime, rather than during

hostilities, when it is usually too late. (While neither the United

States nor the United Kingdom has ratifed the Convention, in 2004the United Kingdom stated its intention to do so, and there is a

movement under way to promote U.S. Senate ratifcation.)

The icbs was ounded in 1996 to work or the protection

o cultural heritage by coordinating preparations to meet and

respond to emergency situations; however, the icbs essentially

consists o only the directors o its constituent bodies: the Coordi-

nating Council o Audio Visual Archives Associations, the Interna-

tional Council on Archives, the International Council o Museums,

the International Council on Monuments and Sites, and the

International Federation o Libraries and Archives.

The Second Protocol o the Hague Convention, drated in1999, gave the icbs a specifc unction under the Convention. Among

other things, it asks parties to the Convention to consider registering

a limited number o reuges, monumental centers, and other

immovable cultural property in the International List o Cultural

Property under Enhanced Protection (maintained by unesco); to

consider marking certain important buildings and monuments with

a special protective emblem o the Convention (the blue shield); to

establish a system o protection or cultural heritage o the greatest

importance or humanity; and to establish special units within the

military responsible or protecting cultural property. The SecondProtocol names icbs as a nongovernmental organization with the

relevant expertise to recommend specifc cultural property or

inclusion on the International List. icbs and its constituent bodies

are also named as eminent proessional organizations with ormal

relations with unesco that can advise and assist the Committee o

States Parties to the Hague Convention.

Blue Shield National CommitteesA country need not be a States Party

to the Hague Convention in order to

establish a Blue Shield national com-

mittee. Established national commit-

tees include those in Australia, Belgium,

Benin, Chile, Cuba, Czech Republic,

France, Israel, Italy, Macedonia,

Madagascar, the Netherlands, Norway,

Poland, Senegal, United Kingdom and

Ireland, and the United States.

The Blue Shield symbol near a staentrance at the KunsthistorischesMuseum in Vienna. Photo:CorineWegener.


8/32

8 Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 23 , Number 1 2008| Feature

A number o countries have established national committees

o the Blue Shield, which can play a crucial role in the execution o

actions required by the Hague Convention. Currently there are

seventeen established Blue Shield national committees and twenty

committees under ormation (see sidebar). Organizations represent-

ing museums, libraries, archives, and archaeological sites make up

the membership o these national committees. National Blue Shield

committees may ocus on domestic or international needs and

natural disasters, armed conict, or both. Blue Shield committees

can also help raise awareness about cultural property at risk rom

armed conict and sometimes act in an advisory capacity to train

cultural proessionals or provide them with necessary expertise.

Two national committeesone in the Netherlands and one in the

United Statesillustrate activities that committees might under-

take to promote protection o cultural property.

During ooding in the Czech Republic in August 2002, the

Dutch Ministries o Culture and Foreign Affairs fnancially aided

Blue Shield Nederland (ounded in 2000) to buy equipment to

preserve paper objects in several Czech museums. Blue Shield

Nederland also organized the transport o the equipment and the

assistance o senior officers o the Dutch National Archive, who

offered their expertise to begin the monumental task o paper

conservation. The initiative began slowly, due to coordination and

logistical problems; however, two thousand cubic meters o paper

were rozen to preserve these materials in advance o treatment.

(The experience acquired during this project enabled Blue Shield

Nederland to provide similar assistance ater the 2004 fre that

destroyed the Anna Amalia Library in Germany.)

Blue Shield Nederland could act in this instance because there

was no immediate threat to lie, because the authorities cooperated

ully, and because the useulness o the project was unquestioned.

It was also important that the request or help came rom the

National Committee o the Blue Shield o the Czech Republic itsel.

This Blue Shield project was executed within the regular cultural

channels and thereore was quite effective. It was relatively easy to

realize and could be replicated in other natural disasters.

The U.S. Committee o the Blue Shield (uscbs) was ounded

in 2006 in response to the looting and subsequent problems in

providing international assistance to the Iraq National Museum.

uscbs, a charitable nonproft organization (as are all national

committees), ocuses on the ollowing: offering cultural property

protection training to U.S. military units deploying to Iraq, Aghan-

istan, and other parts o the world; promoting U.S. ratifcation o

the 1954 Hague Convention; and coordinating with domestic

cultural heritage organizations and other national Blue Shield

committees to provide a worldwide deployable orce o cultural

heritage proessionals to advise and assist in the protection o

cultural property damaged or threatened by armed conict.

The military training program is the most active, providing

instruction or Civil Affairs units. uscbs, the Archaeological

Institute o America, and the American Institute or Conservation

o Historic and Artistic Works (aic) each provide cultural heritage

experts in their respective felds to present a daylong course on the

identifcation and protection o cultural property in all media.

This in turn gives Civil Affairs soldiers the basic knowledge to

advise the commanders o the combat units they support on how to

deal with cultural property protection issues. The training, unded

by the organizations offering the training, is provided at no cost

to the military. The response has been very positive, and a number

o uture sessions are scheduled.

The 353rd Civil Aairs Command, an Army reserveunit rom Fort Bragg, North Carolina, receivingcultural property training rom the U.S. Committeeo the Blue Shield (USCBS). For this training, theUSCBS partnered with the AIC and the ArchaeologicalInstitute o America to provide an overview o culturalproperty protection to this unit, which, like all CivilAairs personnel, is responsible or cultural propertyissues in military theaters o operations. Photo:Corine Wegener.

Working group meeting o the Association o National Committees o the BlueShield (ANCBS) in the Netherlands, March 2007. ANCBS will serve as thecentral contact or aid requests and or administrative coordination o relieoperations among other organizations. Photo:Lei Pareli.


9/32

extending their worst-case scenario to the possibility o war.

Emergency planning is even more important today, given the

willul destruction and looting witnessed during recent conicts

and the possibility in many places o terrorist attacks. Cultural

heritage organizations should recognize that government and

military resources oten do not have the expertise or available

personnel to provide assistance, particularly i they are concerned

with saving lives. Thereore, cultural heritage organizations must

themselves assume responsibility or protecting collections and

planning or the worst.

Cultural heritage proessionals also have a responsibility to

colleagues around the world to work together to protect heritage

during armed conict. The International Committee o the Blue

Shield is the most logical umbrella organization under which this

effort can be carried out. Blue Shield national committees, by

uniting the many cultural heritage organizations and individual

proessionals within a nation, can better inuence lawmakers,

increase public awareness, and improve coordination with theirrespective militarieswhich, as the situation in Iraq demonstrates,

is crucial or protecting and preserving cultural heritage in war

zones. The various national committees o the Blue Shield are also

stronger when they band together as the Association o National

Committees o the Blue Shield, providing a central clearinghouse

or requests and supporting an international network o cultural

heritage proessionals eager to help by putting their skills to use.

The choice is ours. I we, as cultural heritage proessionals,

continue to act as individuals and unction within a variety o

discrete organizations, we will almost certainly ail the next timecolleagues in a war-torn country need us. However, i we unite in

support o the Blue Shield organizations created to protect cultural

heritage during armed conict, we can make our voices heard and

perhaps even be inuential enough to prevent the next time.

Corine Wegener is an associate curator in the department of Architecture, Design,

Decorative Arts, Craft, and Sculpture at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and

president of the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield. Marjan Otter is a lecturer at the

Reinwardt Academy for Museology in Amsterdam and secretary of Blue Shield

Nederland, located in The Hague. Both are members of the ANCBS working group.

Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 23, Number 1 2008|Feature 9

Association o National Committees

Since icbs consists only o the directors o its constituent bodies,

it lacks the ability to deploy personnel to assist in a cultural heritage

emergency. For this reason, the icbs and various Blue Shield

national committees initiated the development o an Association o

National Committees o the Blue Shield (ancbs) in September 2006.

ancbs will serve as the central contact or requests or help to

preserve endangered cultural heritage and provide administrative

coordination o relie operations among other organizations. ancbs

will promote the Blue Shield organization, both in the heritage

sector and among other relie organizations. Finally, it will maintain

an international list o available specialists in the area o disaster

prevention and containment in each member country, along with

a central inormation and expertise center and Web site.

The city o The Hague has offered fnancial and logistical

support or ancbs to house its headquarters in that city. In the past

year, the ancbs working group has drated organizational statutes,

has begun developing a Web site, and has continued to assess its role

alongside that o the ancbs. In 2008ancbs plans to incorporate in

the Netherlands and begin und-raising to fnance uture operations

with three goals in mind. First, it wants to provide expertise to

cultural heritage organizations seeking advice on preventive

measures, preservation, and restoration o cultural heritage through

the sel-help database on the Blue Shield Web site (in cooperation

with expert organizations in this feld). Second, it plans to develop

teams o cultural heritage experts who will provide direct assistance

to cultural heritage organizations affected by natural disasters or

armed conict, and it plans to provide the logistical means to deploy

these experts where they are most needed (in a manner similar to

that o organizations like Doctors Without Borders). And third,

Blue Shield national committees will stimulate preventive measures

by raising awareness and improving coordination with their respec-

tive governments and military organizations.

The success o these plans depends greatly on the level o

participation and commitment o cultural heritage communities in

each nation to their national Blue Shield committeesand on the

development o national committees where they do not exist. As is

the case with institutional emergency plans, this type o coordina-

tion cannot be done on an ad hoc basis in the midst o a disaster, nor

can it be done amid tur battles among the various interested parties.

It must be a long-term, coordinated, mutually benefcial process

involving cultural heritage organizations rom all sectors.

In the past, one o the most important measures to protect

cultural property during armed conict was the preventive planning

done by institutions. During World War II, museums that suc-

ceeded in saving their collections began planning years in advance,

using the same emergency planning techniques as always, but

For urther inormation,

visit the ollowing Web sites:

Blue Shield Nederland

www.blueshield.nl/index.en.html

U.S. Committee o the Blue Shield

www.uscbs.org

Association o National Committees

o the Blue Shield

www.ifa.org/VI/4/admin/

icbs-accord28-09-2006.htm


10/32

10 Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 23, Number 1 2008| Dialogue

Jeffrey Levin: Lets start with what may be the biggest question.

In the post-disaster environment, how do we appropriately

balance the preservation o heritage, whether its movable or

immovable, with the proound human needs that inevitably arise

in these circumstances?Ben Wisner: The answer is interdependent with other issues we want

to addresssuch as the possible positive roles o heritage and

heritage collections in social, psychological, and economic recovery.

Broadly speaking, this goes to the question o whos makingdecisions. You could rephrase the question to ask, Where does

heritage preservation, including movable and immovable heritage,

actually ft within the discussions that are currently going on in this

very broad and international discussion? Between1990 and 1999,

there was an international decade or natural disaster reduction,

which started offin a narrow way but broadened out to include a

strong commitment to community participation. At present, there

is a worldwide initiative headquartered in Geneva in the United

Nations International Strategy or Disaster Reduction that attempts

to bridge decision making and responsibilities between nations andgovernment agencies and the local level, including academia, ngos,

nonprofts, and other parts o the private sector. Also at the moment,

theres the Hyogo Framework o Action, an action document that

came out o the World Conerence on Disaster Reduction that took

place in January 2005 in Kobe, Japan, and that is supposed to be a

ramework that pulls different actors together and encourages them

to do things at the local, national, and international level. I you look

at all these things that have been going on, broadly speaking, the

question o cultural heritage really hasnt come upwhich I fnd

interesting and troubling.

10 Conservation, The GCI Newsletter | Volume 23 , Number 1 2008 | Dialogue

P u t t i n g H e r i t a g e

o n t H e m a P

a d i s C u s s i o n a b o u t

d i s a s t e r m a n a g em e n t

and Cultural Her i tage

Rohit Jigyasu is a conservation architect and risk manage-

ment consultant. Besides teaching as visiting aculty at

the Department o Architectural Conservation, School

o Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, Jigyasu has

worked on conservation projects in India and was the

consultant or the ICCROM (International Centre or

the Study o the Preservation and Restoration o Cultural

Property) Training Kit on Risk Preparedness or CulturalHeritage. In 2005 he helped set the agenda and coordinate

the UNESCO/ICCROM/Agency or Cultural Affairs

o Japan Thematic Meeting on Cultural Heritage Risk

Management, in his capacity as visiting proessor in the

Research Center or Disaster Mitigation o Urban

Cultural Heritage, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto.

Jane Longis vice president or emergency programs at

the nonproft Heritage Preservation in Washington, DC.

She has served as director o the Heritage Emergency

National Task Force since it was ormed in 1995 by

Heritage Preservation, the Federal Emergency Manage-

ment Agency, and the Getty Conservation Institute.

The Task Force is a partnership o ederal agencies and

national associations, and its major initiatives include

the Emergency Response and Salvage Wheel, the

Alliance or Response initiative, and the new Field Guide

to Emergency Response. Long is coauthor o Heritage

Preservations book Caring for Your Family Treasures.

Ben Wisner, a research associate in the EnvironmentalStudies Program at Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, was

vice-chair o the Earthquakes and Megacities Initiative,

vice-chair o the International Geographical Unions

Commission on Hazards and Risks, and a research

coordinator or the United Nations Universitys project

on urban disasters. Lead author o At Risk: Natural

Hazards, Peoples Vulnerability, and Disasters and

author o other books and scientifc papers, he is currently

consultant to the ProVention Consortium and a research

ellow at the Crisis States Program o the Development

Studies Institute, London School o Economics, and at

Benfeld Hazard Research Centre, University College

London. Wisner is also coounder o the RADIX Knowl-

edge Exchange, a Web site devoted to radical interpreta-

tions o disasters and radical solutions, and coounder

o the Coalition or Global School Saety.

They spoke withJeffrey Levin, editor o Conservation,

The GCI Newsletter.


11/32

Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 23, Number 1 2008| Dialogue 11

Jane Long: Thats been true in the United States, too. The business

community, or example, is thinking about how to build disaster-

resistant communities and trying to create coalitions broader than

ones theyve considered in the past. I went to a U.S. Chamber o

Commerce meeting last year and was the only representative rom

the cultural heritage community. Theyre thinking about schools

and businesses and inrastructure, but they overlook the resources

that we have to offer. Its not that theyre hostile to ustheyre just

not thinking about it. Its only recently that the Department o

Homeland Securitys National Response Framework, which has

annexes or emergency response unctions, incorporated cultural

heritage into a unction or protecting agriculture and natural

resources. Its a long process to get our profle raised.

Rohit Jigyasu: You are very right to say that heritage is not on the

agenda o overall disaster reduction. As you suggested, Ben, disaster

reduction is considered a much more humanistic discipline than in

the past. There is a growing realization that disasters are not merely

natural events to be resisted through technology but are inherently

linked to social, developmental, and cultural aspects. Still, culturalheritage as a specifc element in a disaster situation is not really

addressed. Some initiatives have been taken in the recent past, but

the participation o the wider disaster management community is

very limited. We, the heritage proessionals, are very happy to talk to

one another, but the wider world o disaster managementwhich is

hugeeither is not interested or not aware that heritage has to be

looked at in a specifc manner.

Coming back to the question that was posed as we started

there is a problem o perception, as heritage is still looked at in a

very elitist manner. The question is oten raised: When peoples

lives are at stake, why are we talking about elitist thingsmonu-

ments or some remains rom the pastthat have no relevance

today? The point here is that the whole defnition o heritage is

really different rom the popular perception, no? We in the heritage

proessions are indeed stressing that the past has relevance in the

presentthat it is part o community resilience mechanisms and

traditional knowledge systems. Thereore, heritage is not passive.

Rather, it has an active role to play in reducing disasters. We have to

disseminate this broader understanding o heritage to the wider

disaster management community.

Long: One thing that Heritage Preservation has tried to do is to

develop practical approaches that involve bringing emergency

managers into our world and getting to know them better. Theyre

very busy people, obviously, but weve ound that its not a problem

to convince them that heritage and historic resources are important

in their communities. Its just getting on their radar. I theres a fre

or a ood threatening an institution thats a keeper o local history,

the frst responders and emergency managers really want to do the

right thing and help.

Wisner: Ive been meeting with some Tanzanians and some Kenyans

to discuss climate change, but weve also talked about the terrible

post-election violence in Kenya and the eventual recovery o

Kisumu, the second largest city in Kenya, which has had extensive

damagea lot o burning and looting. My colleagues said that in

the course o rebuilding, attention should be paid to the churches

and the mosques, which are important symbols o continuity, hope,

and psychological well-being or the inhabitants. Thats true here.

In New Orleans, there are maybe one hundred thousand structures,

Hra no pav.

Rahr,

ha an acv rol

o pla

n rcn ar.

Roh Ja

C o u r t e s y o f R o h i t J i g y a s u


12/32

many o them in the Ninth Ward, that are not yet repaired, and the

responsibility or condemning and demolishing them has been

turned over rom the Federal Emergency Management Agency

[fema] to the City o New Orleans. A Baptist church in the Ninth

Ward that had been, with great toil and sweat equity, repaired to a

large extent by the parishioners and by the pastor at their own

expense was suddenly demolished. It got on the wrong list. The

interviews I heard on National Public Radio with people affected

were just heart wrenching. This wasnt Chartres Cathedral, but it

had a very important role in peoples lives. We need to explain this to

our colleagues in emergency management, and to sell heritage

preservation as a whole package that runs the gamut rom a world-

class museum or collection to a small working-class mosque in

Kisumu or a Baptist church in New Orleans. I think people can

understand that.

Jigyasu: One reason why these churches and other important

structures are not being protected is because there is no documenta-

tion or legislation existing or their protection. There might be an

agency or disaster management that is in charge o reconstruction

or rehabilitationthere might be rescue agencies, there might be

volunteersbut they are not aware o important structures existing

in the city. Thereore, prior documentation and protection and their

accessibility to these agencies are very important to save heritage

during post-disaster rehabilitation.

Wisner: Now youre talking my language. My PhD is in geography,

and I immediately think o hazard and vulnerability maps that could

easily be generated rom the bottom up. fema under the Clintonadministration was very committed to mitigation and to this kind

o partnership o ordinary citizens and the private sector and local

government. They had something called Project Impact, where they

worked with local steering committees to make local risk assess-

ments and plans. And those local plans could easily include such

maps. At the moment, when you do a contingency plan, you

obviously mark all the hospitals, fre stations, and schools. Why

shouldnt there also be a category o heritage structures and

collections on these maps? And it should include, I would think,

things like zoological collections and botanical gardens.

Levin: Id like to explore urther the positive role that the preserva-

tion o movable and immovable heritage can play or a commu-

nity, and why its important that these things get some attention

prior to and post-disaster.

Long: We were reminded ater Hurricane Katrina that some o the

small institutions, such as historical societies and public libraries,

are oten the keepers o community history. Getting that message

across has to be accomplished on two levels. One is at a policy level.

In most places there is an emergency operations committee with

representatives rom various segments o the communitybusiness,

hospitals, and other sectors. On a policy level, were encouraging

that there be a seat or the cultural heritage community at this

emergency operations center where discussions take place about

planning and mitigation. On the institutional level, we in the

heritage community have to take the initiative to approach local

emergency management agencies, as well as the frst responders

the frefghters and police who are likely to be on site in the event

o an emergency. Its not always a hard sell. For example, in the state

o Florida, public libraries are officially designated as institutions

that provide an essential service ater disasters. They get electricity

restored more quickly because theyre recognized as a resource or

citizens, who can use the computers to fnd relatives and learn about

fema grants and other assistance.

Wisner: In many ways, Florida and also North Carolina are ahead

o the curve because o the experience o Hurricane Andrew, and

later Hurricane Floyd, which affected North Carolina so terribly.

In both these states, public libraries are included in disaster plan-ning. Id like to suggest that in the uture, libraries have even more

o a proactive role in terms o inormation. Some o them, together

with historical societies, may very well have inormation that the

county or city planners dont have about prior disasters. Thats

really important or the local planners to know.

There is an international data center at the Centre or

Research in the Epidemiology o Disasters at Universit Catholique

de Louvain in Belgium that is kind o the gold standard in terms o

databases o disasters worldwide (www.emdat.be/). Its the one

used by the International Federation o Red Cross and Red Cres-

12 Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 23 , Number 1 2008| Dialogue

We know that

once people are safe

and they have food

and shelter,

they start thinking about

the irreplaceable treasures

from their own lives

family photos, the heirloom

wedding dress.

Jane Long

CourtesyofJaneLong


13/32

cent Societies in their annual report. But its main limitation is that it

only includes major events reported by national governments or

major aid organizations. To remedy this, some researchers in Latin

America developed a database, which is available online in English

and Spanish, called DesInventar, that uses local and regional

newspapers and picks up small and medium events that are signif-

cant locally but never make it into their national press, let alone

international awareness (www.desinventar.org/). In post-tsunami

Asia, DesInventar has been implemented in, I believe, our Indian

states, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka, and it has also inspired an urban

disaster database in South Arica.

Jigyasu: To add to what Ben has said about linking local to global,

it is very important that the heritage feld, which has its own

international network, link up to the international disaster manage-

ment network. An organization like the International Committee

o the Blue Shield [icbs]which is a very important international

platorm trying to help countries save heritage in disaster situa-

tionshas to interact with whatever disaster management initia-

tives are going on at the international level. [See p. 4.]

Levin: How does cultural heritage get a seat at the table in those

discussions? How do you achieve greater integration o heritage

concerns with the wider concerns o those involved in disaster

management?

Jigyasu: One place where this integration can happen is at the

heritage management level. A site manager or a director o a

museum can develop a well-thought-out coordination plan with the

local municipality, the local fre office, and other key players in

disaster management. At present, such collaboration is missing in

most cases. A fre officer will happily come to a museum and train

the staffon how to use fre extinguishers, or example. Such little

initiatives, which can happen between the actors within the heritage

feld and the ones in the disaster management area, can develop this

kind o close cooperation beore an event.

The other thing, which is very important, is that both the

heritage and the disaster management sides should be able to

understand one anothers terminology. There is little understanding

o cultural heritage vocabulary within the disaster management

feld. Similarly, within the heritage feld, there is little understand-

ing o the key words used by those in disaster management. We cant

communicate i we in the heritage community use terms the disaster

feld doesnt understand, and the disaster feld uses terms that have

different meanings or us.

Wisner: Site managers and collection managers have to be proactive

at the local level. The planners and the frst responders arent going

to take the initiative. It would also help i at the international policy

level, there were more visibility to the topic. The Pan American

Health Organization, the World Health Organization, and the

International Federation o Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

are quite aware o the role o psychosocial trauma and post-trauma

in recovery. Theres a hook there that could be used to get more

attention or the importance o various kinds o cultural heritage

that provide identity anchors or people in their community,

spatially and socially. Ive been in this business over orty years, and

or quite a while, the perception was that social psychological issues

in disaster recovery were a luxury o industrial countries and

affluent people. Fortunately, over the last twenty years, theres been

a lot o advocacy rom civil societyin South Asia in particular, but

elsewhere toothat says, Look, these are human beings and they

suffer just as much as anybody else rom grie and loss.

There is also an organization called the International Council

or Local Environmental Initiatives, the iclei, that has been imple-

menting something called Local Agenda 21. Its a network o about

seven hundred cities o different sizes around the world doing

various environmental sustainability projects. Last year theystarted a network initiative in disaster risk reductionand given

that a lot o cultural heritage is in towns and cities, this would be

the sort o thing that they may well want to take on board. I they

did, seven hundred cities would be getting inormation about this.

So, at the same time that the local heritage managers are being

proactive, this kind o legitimating inormation could be coming

rom the top down.

Long: In 2003 Heritage Preservation launched a project called

Alliance or Response, in which weve had meetings in cities to bring

cultural heritage leaders and emergency responders together.

A couple o strategies or approaching emergency responders come

to mind. One has to do with saety. Museums may store ammable

or toxic substances, and historic buildings, which may not be quite

up to code, can also pose hazards. Emergency responders want to

know about these issues or their own saety and also so that they can

do their jobs better. Another approach is to make the personal

connection. We know that once people are sae and they have ood

and shelter, they start thinking about the irreplaceable treasures

rom their own livesamily photos, the heirloom wedding dress.

We can provide a community service because we have the knowledge

to help them salvage those pieces o amily history. Thats a link

between the personal and the societal. There were conservators ater

Katrina who organized clinics or people, which was a great effort.

Thats one o the ways you build awareness or preservation.

Jigyasu: One such initiative aimed at building awareness was

undertaken in Kobe, Japan, ollowing the 1993 Great Hanshin-

Awaji earthquake. Objects salvaged ater the earthquake have been

exhibited in a specially designed museum, which serves as an

important source o memory or such disasters.

Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 23 , Number 1 2008| Dialogue 13


14/32

Long: Absolutely. When reaching out to emergency managers, we

need to remind them that museums and other cultural institutions

oten have school groups visiting who are not amiliar with the

building and are accompanied by only one or two adults. Many

museums are not prepared to handle these groups in an emergency.

Levin: What about the role that heritage can play in the economic

recovery? I important heritage exists within a community, the

survival o that heritage may be a signifcant actor in the

survival o the community as a whole.

Jigyasu: Absolutely. Ill give the example o the World Heritage Site

o Prambanan temple complex in Indonesia. Ater the 2006 earth-

quake, one o the big problems was loss o income rom tourists.

This adversely affected the resources available or site maintenance

and management. The issue was whether to stop the visitors rom

comingwhich would mean a big loss in economic termsor to

allow them, in which case there was the challenge o managing their

movement so that they were not exposed to danger rom thedamaged structures. Eventually the authorities came up with the

very interesting idea o erecting visitor viewing platorms so that

the visitors could view the temples rom different vantage positions.

It was thus realized that making a business continuity plan was

useul or running a site or a museum ater a disaster. One cannot

just shut down the whole place or six months or a year.

Long: Museums, libraries, and archives think about disaster plans,

and theyre doing better thinking about protecting collections.

But we have not thought much about contingency planning.

Ater September 11, or example, one o the biggest problems that

cultural institutions aced in Lower Manhattan was the act that

they couldnt return to their institutions and get them up and

running. The economic actor was huge. So not only do we need to

convince policy makers that the cultural heritage is important to the

economy, we also need to make members o the cultural community

more aware o the ways in which disasters can threaten economic

survival. They should think about how they can resume operations

more quickly ater disasters.

Wisner:Part o contingency planning could, in some cases, include

the temporary employment o unemployed people in restoration

and reconstruction work. Ater the Mexico City earthquake in 1985,

there was a major program to employ, I think, around fty thousand

people who had been affected. Most o the damage occurred in the

central, older and historic part o the city, and many o the people

were small artisans who had tools and workshops in the same

buildings where they lived. A whole lot o these people were thrown

out o employment, and many were hired in the cleanup and

recovery process by the authorities. Its a major success story.

Wisner: The earthquake museum in Kobe is a stunning building

with a wonderul collection. I think around three or our hundred

thousand school students go through there every year. Its amazing.

Headquartered in that building is the Disaster Reduction and

Human Renovation Institution. This Japanese institution has

partnerships to develop museums around the world in jurisdictions

that have had disasters. Another example is the tsunami museum in

Hilo, Hawaii, which I visited some years ago. Its a modest collection,

more like a science museum, but its a community educational

resourceand this ties back to heritage. In some ways, disasters

themselves can become heritage. Thats an important point, because

the memory o these things is very short. This comes up again and

again in the literature o hazard perception. Its one o the reasons

many people, including mysel, argue that developing tsunami early

warning systems and community drills in potentially tsunami-

affected countries have to be tied to systems and community

exercises in response to events that are much more requent. The

next tsunami could come tomorrow, or it could be in fve hundredyears. However, all o those countries are annually affected by

typhoons and cyclones. I you tie the two together, you build on

memory that is resher.

Levin:Are there positive roles, such as providing shelter, that built

heritage can play during emergencies?

Wisner: A lot o people seek shelter in churches, and to the extent

that people do spontaneously go to churches and temples, the

pastors or the imamsor whoever is maintaining thesehave to be

aware that they need to prepare and have the resources, as well ashave these buildings looked at and assessed or their structural

soundness. This is something, I believe, that the Church World

Service is promoting with a whole network o Protestant denomina-

tions, sending out publicity to thousands o ministers, saying

preparedness starts with your church. Is your church seismically

sound? Is it in a ood plain? What is your water supply? How many

toilets do you have? And so on.

Jigyasu: The notion olife safety buildings or life services is really

important. In India, an important initiative is under consideration

by the national agency responsible or disaster management, which

is considering including monuments in its official list olifeline

buildings besides hospitals and schools. They have realized that these

landmark structures are important not only or their signifcance

to the community but also because they are visited by thousands

o tourists. As a result, there is a likelihood o a big concentration

o people in and around these, when a disaster happens.

14 Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 23 , Number 1 2008| Dialogue


15/32

Levin: Another question we wanted to address relates to built

heritage ollowing a disaster. How oten is it the case that in the

immediate atermath o a disaster, a good amount o damaged

built heritage is demolished, when in act it is salvageable?

Jigyasu: This is something that we oten fnd. I can give you an

example rom the historic city o Bhuj in Gujarat, India, with

signifcant heritage components such as ortifcations, historic

structures, temples, and open spaces. Ater the 2001 earthquake,

many o these got damagedbut not really to the point that theyhad to be completely demolished. In the immediate atermath o

the earthquake, when the relie and rescue agencies came in, they

didnt know what should be kept and what should be done away

with, so they completely wiped away everything. A lot o important

structures were lost that should have been kept as a source o

memory rom the past. As a result, we have ended up with a new

town, which is completely devoid o identity. Such situations quite

ironically turn natural disasters into cultural disasters.

Long:Thats true. This is another good reason to have a current

inventory o collections and to communicate that to local authorities.

Levin: How oten is it the case that vernacular architecture and

traditional structures are better suited than modern construction

or withstanding the potential disasters o a particular region?

Jigyasu: This is something that we need to consider when we look at

the role that cultural heritage can playincluding the vernacular

structures under that broader defnition o heritage. There is a lot

o embedded knowledge in the way these structures were con-

structed. We have plenty o examples rom all over the world, such

Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 23 , Number 1 2008| Dialogue 15

as Kashmir, where timber-ramed constructions with masonry infll

and diagonal bracing perormed really well during the 2005 earth-

quake, while many new structures collapsed like a pack o cards.

There are many interesting examples o such structures in other

parts o the world, such as Turkey. In act, we fnd that in those

areas that have a regular history o these events, the vernacular

architecture has evolved as a response to these disasters. So theres a

lot that we can learn rom them.

Wisner: The best-known example is Japanese residential light rame

construction. There is a lot o work going on in the world strength-

ening schools at low cost using local materials and training local

cratspeoplebuilding on their existing skill knowledge but then

adding some elements or trying, in some cases, to recover certain

cultural elements. Pakistan is an example o how knowledge has

been lost. A ew decades ago, there was much more knowledge o

using wood rame bracing in stone structures. Now two things have

happened. The builders who knew how to do this began to migrate,

sometimes as ar as Saudi Arabia, to make money. Second, deores-

tation meant that there was less wood and that it was more expensive,

so over the last ew decades, people built very dangerous, unbraced

heavy masonry residences that cost many lives in the October 2005

earthquake. Not all lost local knowledge is necessarily lost in the dim

past. A lot o local knowledge is still around and can be reclaimed.

Jigyasu: One has to look at it in a nonconservative manner, in the

sense that i wood, which is an important housing material, is

expensive and unavailable, then we might have to look or alterna-

tives by combining traditional and modern knowledge.

Wisner: Well, absolutely. Thats what colleagues whom both you and

I know in Kyoto are doing. There are temples there that are ull o

accelerometers and other instruments, and theyre basically moni-

toring the behavior o these structures in the small earthquakes that

are common in Japan. Likewise, colleagues o ours in Istanbul have

all sorts o measuring devices inside o the Hagia Sophia and the

Blue Mosque, because these things have withstood major earth-

quakes. It isnt just a matter o how massive they are but also a

matter ohow theyre built. So were learning all the time. I reer to

this as hybrid knowledge. You have various orms o local knowl-

edge, and you also have external specialists knowledge. I you have

a relationship o trust and a good institutional ramework, you can

actually marry the two.

Not all lost

local knowledge

is necessarily

lost in the dim past.

A lot of local knowledge

is still around

and can be reclaimed.

Ben Wisner

CourtesyofBenWisner


16/32

16 Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 23 , Number 1 2008| News in Conservation

R e t H i N k i N g C R e s C e N t C i t y C u Lt u R e

NeW ORLeANs tWO ANd A HALf yeARs LAteR

By Kristin Kelly and Joan Weinstein

On Sunday, August 28, 2005, as Hurricane Katrina moved

north across the Gul o Mexico with New Orleans squarely in its

path, Orleans Parish issued its frst-ever mandatory evacuation

order. Early Monday, August 29, Katrina made landall to the east

o New Orleans, devastating the historic cities and towns o the

Mississippi Gul Coast. New Orleans was spared the worst o the

winds and rain, but by midmorning on August 29, the levees

holding back the waters o the citys numerous canals had been

breached, and water poured in. By August 31, 80 percent o New

Orleans lay under water.

Arguably the most debilitating disaster ever to beall a major

American city, Katrina brought with it an incomprehensible loss o

lie and major devastation to the urban abric o New Orleans, oten

called the most unique city in the United States. The cities o the

U.S. Gul CoastBay St. Louis, Pass Christian, Gulport, and

Biloxi among themwere similarly affected.

In New Orleans itsel, a number o cultural institutions were

severely damaged by ooding and high winds, though many located

on the citys higher ground survived physically. But all cultural

institutions, whether physically damaged or not, were aced with the

Satellite image o Hurricane Katrina over the U.S. Gul Coast, taken at2:15 PM (EDT) on August 29, 2005. Katrina made landall that same dayas a category 3 storm with winds up to 125 miles an hour. Photo:Courtesy o National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).


17/32

Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 23 , Number 1 2008| News in Conservation 17

act that post-Katrina New Orleans would be a very different

placeone with a different demographic and with reduced tourism,

and a place where previous methods o operation were no longer

viable. The survival o the museums and cultural and historic

institutions o New Orleans would depend on their ability to adapt.

Disaster Planning on the Gul Coast

Cultural institutions situated on the U.S. Gul Coast live with the

constant threat o disaster during the hurricane season. When

Hurricane Katrina struck, many o these were in the midst o

strategic planning processes, several o which highlighted the need

or a disaster preparedness plan. Post-Katrina, these planning

processes were rethought, and in many cases, they have become the

outline or the survival o the institutions.

In August 2005, the Ohr-OKeee Museum o Art in Biloxi,

Mississippi, was in the middle o a major expansion. Devoted to the

presentation o the cultural heritage o the Gul Coast and inspired

by the innovative work o George Ohr, The Mad Potter o Biloxi,the museum had commissioned architect Frank Gehry to design a

new six-building complexthe opening o which would have

ocused national and international attention on Biloxi and the

cultural community o the Gul Coast. By the end o the day on

August 29, the raming or the new structures had been crushed by

a casino barge that was lited rom the waters just offshore and

deposited on the construction site. Other structures on the site were

completely destroyed.

The Ohr-OKeee Museum o Art, however, had an excellent

disaster plan in place. The staffwas able to secure the potterycollection in situ on the second oor o the museum building.

No part o the collection was harmed, despite the act that approxi-

mately three eet o water entered the frst oor. But there was one

aspect the disaster plan never addressedthe atermath. While the

collections were unharmed, security guards hired to protect them

let to be with their amilies. Staffand board members obtained

permission to store the collections at the Mobile Museum o Art in

Alabama. Almost a year ater Katrina, the Ohr-OKeee museums

physical plant was still uninhabitable, and the collections were

moved again to a secure vault at Mississippi State University, wherethey remain. The museum is currently working to update its

disaster plan, including comprehensive plans or action during and

ater a disaster and the establishment o a written chain o com-

mand. The staffis also searching or long-term storage sites well

north o the Mississippi Gul Coast that can be shared with other

cultural institutions in the region.

The National Historic Landmark Longue Vue House and

Gardens in New Orleans is the ormer home o Edgar and Edith

Stern, liberal philanthropists who supported causes rom the

United Negro College Fund to the Emergency Committee o

Flooding in New Orleans ollowing HurricaneKatrina. Photo:Courtesy o National Oceanicand Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Atomic Scientists. The historic property survived Katrina but not

the breach o the Seventeenth Street Canal less than a mile away,

an event the disaster plan did not anticipate. The basement ooded

to a depth o ten eet, and all mechanical, electrical, and originalhvac equipment was destroyed. Polluted waters also heavily

damaged the sites historic gardens, designed in the 1930s by Ellen

Biddle Shipman. When Executive Director Bonnie Goldblum

gained limited access to the site two weeks later, she ound

temperatures rom 89F to 90F in the buildingand humidity

levels to match.

Temporary climate control and dehumidifcation began in late

September 2005, ollowed by emergency repairs to the heavily

damaged hvac and electrical systems. Two years ater Katrina,

Longue Vue staffand board members are now completing a long-


18/32

18 Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 23 , Number 1 2008| News in Conservation

range conservation management plan that will guide the uture use

and interpretation o the eight-acre site. The plan seeks to highlight

the inspirational beauty o Longue Vues superb design and the

outstanding philanthropy o its donors. With the legacy o the

Sterns in mind, the goal is to make Longue Vue a key educational

and cultural resource in the rebuilding o the city. These efforts

have been supported by a grant rom the Getty Foundation. Getty

support, ollowing Hurricane Katrina, has given Longue Vue House

and Gardensand many o the other cultural organizations o the

citythe opportunity to re-envision our mission, goals, capacity,

and relevancy, which is vital to our growth and sustainability, as well

as to the revitalization o the city, says Goldblum.

When the levees broke, the Arican artiact collection rom the

Center or Arican and Arican American Studies at the Southern

University at New Orleans (suno) was submerged in salt water or

over our weeks beore staffcould reach it. The high levels o heat

and humidity in the building and the lack o electricity resulted in

extensive mold growtheven or objects stored on the highestshelves. Following their emergency plan, staffeventually moved the

entire salvageable collection, more than seven hundred objects, to a

storage acility orty miles away, where it was placed in containment

using anoxic umigation to arrest mold growth. Conservation

treatment on the suno collection, begun just recently, will take

several years. In the interim, the university will plan or the uture

storage and display o the collection, keeping in mind the difficult

lessons learned rom Katrina.

Museum collections that were subjected to less ooding

generally ared much better, as staffwere able either to move objects

to saekeeping or to maintain them in situ. The larger issues or all

these institutions were protecting their collections in the general

chaos that reigned ater the hurricane, as well as fguring out i they

could survive in a city where their audiences had disappeared

overnight.

A New Model o Cultural Collaboration

Cultural tourismwhether or the internationally amous music,

the distinctive ood, or the citys historic landmarkshas always

been an important part o the economy o New Orleans. Ater

Katrina, with no audiences remaining, traditional revenue streams

or cultural institutions all but vanished, necessitating massive stafflayoffsmore than two-thirds o the personnel at most institutions.

Cultural leaders in the city quickly realized that past operating

methods would not work or the oreseeable utureand that any

uture they might have would depend upon collaboration.

George Ohr Gallery Pavilion pods at theOhr-OKeee Museum o Art. These Frank Gehrydesigned structures mark the rst phase o themuseums rebuilding and were celebrated at aDecember 2007 event drawing over six hundredmuseum supporters. Photo:Courtesy o Ohr-

OKeee Museum o Art.

A casino boat pushed onshore by HurricaneKatrina, damaging the Arican American Galleryat the Ohr-OKeee Museum o Art. The aircratcarriersize barge had been located a hal milerom the museum. Photo:Courtesy o NationalOceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).


19/32

Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 23, Number 1 2008| News in Conservation 19

They were encouraged in this belie when local audiences

responded enthusiastically to the frst post-Katrina cultural

offerings, which included concerts and other collaborative events

by the museums and cultural organizations in the citys Warehouse

Arts District. This response signaled a renewed and expanded role

or cultural institutions in rebuilding the city, and the cultural

community was asked to prepare a report as part o Mayor Ray

Nagins Bring New Orleans Back Commission. This report detailed

the situation in New Orleans at the beginning o2006 and made

recommendations in fve broad areasrebuilding New Orleanss

talent pool; supporting community-based cultural traditions and

repairing and developing cultural acilities; marketing New Orleans

as a cultural capital; teaching cultural traditions to the next genera-

tion; and attracting new investments and building inormation

resources. Each o these areas had specifc, targeted recommenda-

tions. The ull text o the report can be ound online at www.

bringneworleansback.org.

Led by the Contemporary Arts Center and its executivedirector Jay Weigel, eight organizations are engaged in ongoing

strategic planning that will beneft each o the institutions individu-

ally. More importantly, however, this planning will bring the

organizations together to work across institutional boundaries to

For a list o Getty Foundation grants supporting the ongoing recovery

o New Orleans visual arts organizations, see:

www.getty.edu/grants/und_or_new_orleans/index.html

Artists rom the New Orleans Center or CreativeArts creating The Wall at the Contemporary Arts

Centers benet party in March 2008. This markedthe return o this event to New Orleans ater twopost-Katrina years in New York. The 2008 eventrecognized six oundations whose undinginitiatives have helped the CAC and other GulCoast institutions recover rom Hurricane Katrinaand its atermath. Photo:Frank L. Aymami III.

Masks rom the Dan people o western IvoryCoast and eastern Liberia, and a small beadedanimal gure rom the Bamileke peoplepart othe collection o the Center or Arican and

Arican American Studies at Southern Universityat New Orleans. The centers collection, badlydamaged by the atermath o Hurricane Katrina,is undergoing conservation treatment, a processexpected to take several years. Photo:Courtesyo Southern University at New Orleans.

beneft the whole o New Orleans. They began with a study o their

past and current audiences and o the major demographic shits in

the city that will impact the role o the arts in the community. They

are also exploring strategies or collaboration, rom joint program-

ming to merging organizations. Weigel states, Since Katrina, our

arts community has been at the center o the New Orleans recovery,

due in large part to the collaborative spirit that has emerged between

art institutions, artists, and unders dedicated to Gul Coast

recovery. Their efforts have been aided by a grant rom the Getty

Foundations Fund or New Orleans, which has provided $2 million

to arts organizations or historic preservation and transition

planning in the wake o Hurricane Katrina.

The uture o New Orleans as an animated cultural capital is

by no means assured. But the leaders o the cultural community are

creating a new model o collaboration and are developing common

goals to attempt to bring New Orleans back.

Kristin Kelly is a principal project specialist with the GCI. Joan Weinstein is associatedirector for grants programming at the Getty Foundation.


20/32

This situation is exacerbated by the act that the cultural heritage

sector is under-resourced.

Cultural institutions such as museums can and must

prepare themselves or disasters and emergencies by being awareo the risks and by putting mitigation strategies in place to help

reduce the damage caused by an event.1

Damage caused ater an

eventsuch as collapsed buildings, ungal outbreaks, and loss

o documentationcan be greatly reduced and possibly avoided

with proper preparedness strategies.

Teamwork or Integrated Emergency

Management

The Getty Conservation Institute (gci) has long advocated the

protection o cultural property and has helped develop practicalsolutions to the technical problems aced in protecting collections

and buildings in emergency situations. Since 2004 the gci has

collaborated with the International Council o Museums (icom) and

the International Centre or the Study o the Preservation and

Restoration o Cultural Property (iccrom) in an education initiative

ocused on saeguarding museums rom the effects o natural and

human-caused emergencies. This collaboration is carried out within

the broader ramework oicoms Museums Emergency Program

(mep), which is a strategic, multiyear project that aims to assist

museum and other heritage proessionals with the task o assessing,preparing or, and responding to natural and human-made threats

(icom.museum/mep.html).

20 Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 23, Number 1 2008| News in Conservation

W H e R e s t H e f i R e ?

teAmWORk fOR iNtegRAted

emeRgeNCy mANAgemeNt

By Foekje Boersma

No matter where we live in the world, we ace the potential

o natural disasters: hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic

eruptions, ooding, and wildfres, to name but a ew. Each region

has its particular risks. In Southern Caliornia, the main naturaldisaster threats are earthquakes and wildfres; in northwestern

Europe, they are primarily ooding rom rivers and rising sea levels.

With climate change, the requency and magnitude o these natural

threats will be affected, requiring communities to adjust. Further-

more, due to the shiting o climate zones, some regions are now

acing threats that they did not previously conront.

Human activity can create or exacerbate the risk o disaster.

One immediately thinks o war and terrorism, but other actions can,

without intention, increase the likelihood and the magnitude o a

natural disasteror example, deorestation enhancing erosion andampliying the potential or landslides.

As world population increases, more people are affected by

disasters. For this reason, many countries, both individually and

collectively, are placing greater emphasis on disaster management

and preparedness. To save lives, these countries are ocusing on

mitigation strategies to help reduce the impact o a disaster, putting

disaster response plans in place, and educating the public.

The protection o cultural heritage and its recovery ater a

disaster are oten not considered as part o existing disaster policies

and planning. In response to this gap, some members o the culturalsector are developing strategies collaboratively to protect heritage

rom disasters. An example is the recently established Association

o National Committees o the Blue Shield, which supports the new

International Committee or the Protection o Cultural Property in

the Event o Armed Conict, established under the Second

Protocol o the 1954 Hague Convention (see p. 4).

Despite such notable efforts, in general there remains an

inadequate understanding among cultural heritage stewards

o the major threats that can affect heritage, along with a limited

knowledge o possible approaches to manage these risks.

1. A disaster is a serious disruption o the unctioning o a community or a society causing

widespread human, material, economic, or environmental losses which exceeds the ability

o the aected community or society to cope using its own resources (International

Strategy for Disaster Reduction). An emergency is an event, actual or imminent, which

endangers or threatens to endanger lie, property, or the environment and which requires

a signifcant and coordinated response (Emergency Risk Management Applications Guide,

Australian Emergency Manuals Series).


21/32

!

!

Conservation, The GCI Newsletter| Volume 23 , Number 1 2008| News in Conservation 21

As a major component o this collaboration, the partners

developed an education model that enables museum proessionals,

over an extended time period, to gain experience in integrated

emergency management. The term integratedreers to the holisticapproach, which encompasses the necessary interdependent skills,

knowledge, and experience and deals with all aspects o a museum: the

people (staffand visitors), the building, the collections, and the

documentation. Understanding integrated emergency management

is a long-term process that cannot be effectively acquired through

short courses or workshops. It is a process that museums can under-

take on their own, but the overall impact is much greater i several

institutions in a specifc region collaborate, helping and supporting

one anothernot only in disaster response but also in the process o

becoming and staying prepared. This approach also assures that localcontexts, traditions, and existing methods will be considered.

With this in mind, the course Teamwork or Integrated Emer-

gency Management (tiem), designed or museums, was developed.

The course runs over a period o several months and aims at building

a sustainable capacity in both risk assessment and emergency pre-

paredness within a region. It combines training workshops with

on-the-job learning and practical experience, and it takes into account

the act that institutions differ in types o collections, resources, size,

culture, and traditions. In this way, the course emphasizes the ways

museums can adapt approaches to integrated emergency managementto their particular situations.

The tiem course begins with a workshop (phase one) that

introduces the concepts o integrated emergency preparedness and

discusses how these can be implemented within the participating

institutions. Following the workshop, participants return to their own

institutions, where they work together with their director and other

colleagues to implement tiem concepts in their museums. During a

period o seven or eight months (phase two), they remain in contact

with the course instructors and ellow participants. The instructors

o the workshop serve as mentors and provide guidance as required.

Participants in the November 2007Teamwork or Integrated EmergencyManagement course undertaking a riskassessment o the local museum in thehistoric town o Ohrid, a World HeritageSite in the Former Yugoslav Republic oMacedonia. Photo:Foekje Boersma.

Workshop participants discussing aclassroom-based exercise on disasterrisk assessment. Photo:Foekje Boersma.

Instructors preparing materials or a

workshop exercise on salvaging objectsater an emergency. Photo:FoekjeBoersma.

An instructor assisting participants in aclassroom exercise on special emer-gency considerations or documentation.Photo:Foekje Boersma.


22/32

At the end o this distance mentoring phase, the participants are

brought together again or a fnal meeting (phase three) in which

their experiences are shared. This meeting also allows participants

to address specifc topics that may have emerged.

Participants or tiem are drawn rom up to ten museums rom

a group o countries in a specifed region. By signing up or this

course, museum directors commit their institutions to participate

actively in all phases o the course. Each museum can delegate two

o its staffmembers to attend the ace-to-ace components (phases

one and three), while management personnel and a larger portion

o the museum staffwill be involved during the second phase. In the

long term, it is expected that the participating museums will

disseminate their knowledge and experience in this feld to other

museums in their region, refning and expanding the regional

network.

In addition to the personnel rom museums, aculty rom

academic programs in conservation or museum studies can also

participate in the course. Their involvement helps ensure that theprinciples o integrated emergency management will be passed on

to the next generation o museum personnel in the region.

Successul museum emergency management requires

interdisciplinary teamwork on the part o museum personnel,

emergency proessionals, and the community. This act is reected

in the diverse team o course instructors

VVAA. Disaster Management Cultural Heritage. GCI. 2008

Documents

Transcript of VVAA. Disaster Management Cultural Heritage. GCI. 2008