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A shining heritage? The lighting of heritage sites in contemporary cities

Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2015

Abstract

The cities are changing at night - we can see their other face, than in daylight. Between others lights in night cities we can recongize a special sort of lit buildings - heritage sites.

In my paper I concentrate on cultural techniques, which are connected with desire to enlight cultural heritage. I am prooving my thesis on the example of city Prague, well known via historical city center (a part of World Heritage List UNESCO).

At first I focus the discourse of preservation of cultural heritage - what the definition of cultural heritage and its preservation is. The lighting performs the function of presentation of cultural heritage.

It remarks us, that the important role in proces of heritage preservation plays the auditorium. The heritage site can we understand as theater scene - and the lighting is important part of this scenography.

The second perspective is the archeology of light. With media archeologist (Fridrich A.

Kittler, Jonathan Crary) can we define cultural practises encoded in lighting. It helps us define the expactations of our ensemble and audience.

The third part of paper shows discussion and controverses about lighting of concrete heritage sites. Here can we identify the aims of participants of discussion.

In conclusion I contextualise my approach in more general thesis about the relation of our society to history.