Conserving by aesthetics, conserving by development: the rescaling and worlding of global south heritage

Conserving Cairo’s Historical Courtyards through Mixed Reality: A Geospatial Framework for Immersive Environments and Social Sustainability

“…The selection of the courtyard of Bayt Yakan as MO goes back to a number of reasons related to accessibility, data availability, its social impact and more importantly understanding the paradigmatic shifts and the political landscape of conservation practices in Cairo within which it represents a new approach for conserving cultural heritage by way of self-led awareness. El-Husseiny and Hafez [20] theorize the paradigmatic shifts in conservation practices in Cairo as follows: the first paradigmatic practice: "conserving by aesthetics" began with the initiation of the Comité de Conservation des Monuments de l'Art Arabe (CCMAA) in 1881, where cultural heritage fell under the mandate of French and British archeologists -one of their projects were the conservation and adaptive reuse of Bayt El-Kretliya [20]; second paradigmatic practice: "conserving by development" as exemplified in Al-Darb Al-Ahmar Rehabilitation Project that started in 1990 under the management of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) [21]; third paradigmatic practice: "conserving through digital modeling" as conducted by the Center for Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage (CULTNAT) in 2002 [22,23], and fourth paradigmatic practice: the more recently "self-led conservation" initiated by architectural enthusiasts, cultural conservators and real-estate developers arousing in 2008 as witnessed by Al-Ismaelia for Real Estate Investment in Downtown Cairo [24] and the work of Alaa El-Habashi and Ola Said in Bayt Yakan. Such paradigmatic shifts align with the transformation in state-heritage relationship during the colonial period (1882-1952) to the decolonial rule and pan-Arab nationalism under president Nasser (1954)(1955)(1956)(1957)(1958)(1959)(1960)(1961)(1962)(1963)(1964)(1965)(1966)(1967)(1968)(1969)(1970) to a shift in the role of the developmentalist state (1984)(1985)(1986)(1987)(1988)(1989)(1990)(1991) till the neoliberal era with the state withdrawal in tandem with the rise of the private sector (1992-present).…”