What role does aesthetics play in decisions about heritage management, including decisions about conservation and restoration?

Heritage faces threats from war, climate catastrophe, lack of funding, gentrification, politically motivated interest in creating fake historical narratives, and so on. In contemporary contexts, decisions about conservation, restoration, or reconstruction tend to attend to local development needs, the norms surrounding modern conservation practices, authenticity, and sustainability-financial and otherwise. In contrast, aesthetic considerations are usually neglected.

Drawing from heritage studies, aesthetics, philosophy of art, philosophy of heritage, philosophy of mind, axiology, conservation, and environmental heritage-and representing ten countries-the contributors to this collection consider the role aesthetics has played in such decisions historically as well as why it remains relevant today.

Edited by Derek Matravers and Zoltán Somhegyi, this volume demonstrates that it is important to subject the principles underlying decisions concerning heritage and conservation to scrutiny, and that aesthetics should be given its proper place among them.

Derek Matravers is Professor of Philosophy at the Open University and Fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge, UK.
Zoltán Somhegyi is Associate Professor of Philosophy at University of Szeged, Hungary.