Preserving urban heritage

10.04.2024 - From 25 to 29 March 2024, the UNESCO Chair of Hochschule RheinMain organized a workshop together with the faculty of Architecture of Bursa Uludag University in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Bursa. Bursa, located in the northwest of Turkey, was the first capital of the Ottoman Empire and seat of the Sultan in the 14th century, with a unique urban and land system for the time.

The main objective of the workshop was to investigate the resilience of the UNESCO World Heritage context of Bursa by applying the Heritage Impact Assessment method to assess various risk factors such as disasters, climate change, socio-economic changes and urban development projects. Six students from Hochschule RheinMain and 17 students from Uludag University and Erciyes University worked together on site. Under the guidance of supervisors Prof. Michael Kloos, Dr. Merve Demiröz Torun and Prof. Tülin Vural Arslan and academic participants, including Prof. Figen Kıvılcım Çorakbaş, Selen Durak, Gonca Büyükmıhçı, Leyla Kaderli and the director of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Prof. Neslihan Dostoglu, the students took part in various training lectures and field studies.

The workshop culminated in an extremely insightful meeting, the results of which will certainly contribute to a comprehensive research project. These results will enrich our understanding of sustainable heritage management and urban resilience in the UNESCO World Heritage context.