Values in Cities: Urban Heritage in Twentieth-Century Australia

Across the twentieth century, heritage and ideas of value and significance had increasing power to shape cities and places. Sites and areas found valuable by professionals and communities were conserved. Places perceived to lack value became subject to modernisation, redevelopment, and renewal. From the 1970s, alongside strengthened activism and legislation, with the innovative Burra Charter (1979), the values-based model emerged for managing the aesthetic, historic, scientific, and social significance of historic environments. Values thus transitioned from an implicit to an overt component of urban, architectural, and planning conservation. In this presentation, James Lesh traces the Australian heritage movement and its role both in celebrating the Australian nation and in reconciling settler colonialism for the twentieth century.

Dr James Lesh is an urban historian and Lecturer in Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies. His research explores the theory and practice of heritage conservation in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Before joining Deakin University, he had previous appointments at the University of Melbourne, University of Sydney, and King’s College London.