The rule of fragment in redefinition of historical settlement: The case of Lviv

Abstract

In the last decades, preservation has become an unrestrained impulse all over Europe. What would matter in this context is a continuity of narrative, form, physical medium. However, due to the major paradigm of preservation, exclusionary consideration of selected materiality results in the gentrification of heritage sights, which value often converted into an exchangeable commodity. While selected segregated fragments perform as agents of the culture of consumerism, the areas out of the consideration undergo uncertainties of fluid practices. That leads to irreplaceable reorganisation of a dynamic entity, results in discontinuity of urban present, of what it is and what it was. In this context, the city of Lviv is a paradigmatic case of a gentrified urban landscape. The city became the cultural and touristic centre of Ukraine after the nomination of its core (Old Town) as a world heritage site. However, the identification of defined parts as valuable structure separated from the surrounding context has negative consequences for the resilience of urban layout. Firstly, this study intends to identify the expressions and consequences of gentrification policies in a historical urban context and its duality. Therefore, it brings as a case study the discontinuous urban narrative of Lviv's former Jewish community with two urban fragments of rich historical background presented as polarities. The settlement within preserved Old Town poses a problem of commodified history, while the former Zhovkivske neighbourhood outside the edge of the preserved area is a cross point of destruction and safeguarding awaiting the recreation. Secondly, based on such analytical regard, the study proposes potentiality for connections originating from the historical traces, to recreate links between historical urban fragments. It makes it possible to read a city as a combination of systems interrelated by unique narratives. Finally, a methodology based on this critical approach aimed at outlining a possibility for the urban regeneration process, that not necessarily lie in the formal production of architecture but can be expressed as configurations anticipating future morphologies by reconstructing the urban layout as a resilient organism.

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