Echoes that inhabit the garden

According to the South Australian Tourism Commission’s brand framework, one of the stronger consumer perceptions about South Australia to emerge from a wide body of tourism research is our heritage ambience, particularly that of Adelaide itself. Utilising that heritage, infusing it with contemporary expression, and telling our story in memorable ways can bring South Australia’s unique settlement history, and enviable status as a premier food and wine destination alive to visitors and to ourselves. Our origins as a free settled state where tolerance, civil liberty and opportunity have always been valued imbue us with a certain ‘free thinking’ culture and personality that make us an attractive place to live, visit and hopefully invest.  

Heritage is not only about buildings and architecture, but about the fact that stories live in a place, according to federal environment minister Tony Burke, who opened the 2013 Australian Heritage Conference at Rymill House with a line from TS Eliot’s Burnt Norton: ‘Other echoes / Inhabit the garden.’   The theme of storytelling echoed throughout the conference, which started with the premise that simply preventing the destruction of heritage is not enough to sustain it. Topics included the enrichment of built heritage through brilliant storytelling and effective branding, adapting and repurposing old buildings to give them new life, and understanding and unlocking the economic and cultural value of heritage assets.   Cultural economist Professor David Throsby explained how heritage assets generate economic value through their direct use by individuals, as well as through a variety of intangible benefits that do not require a person to ever actually visit the place. These include (i) option values, where a person values the option to visit a heritage place, even though they may not have immediate plans to do so; (ii) existence values, where the simple existence of the place means that people would feel a quantifiable loss if it were destroyed; and (iii) other non-use values, such as the value generated by the chance to bequeath a heritage place to future generations, as part of a shared cultural legacy.   In addition to these economic values, heritage assets also represent cultural value through their contribution to the cultural identity, or ‘cultural capital’ of a city and its inhabitants.   Property valuer Kel Spencer explored the impact that heritage legislation has on the market value of property. His examination of 40 local, national and international studies demonstrated that the impact of heritage listing has without exception been neutral or positive, thus rebutting common perceptions fueled by property developers through the media. Spencer’s presentation supported the view that it is the collective heritage ambience of a neighbourhood or city, enhanced by a systematic listing strategy, that creates real estate value, rather than the benefits created by the protection of a specific residential or commercial place. So why has the South Australian government effectively abandoned the heritage agenda, and why do media commentators continue to perpetuate myths and stereotypes around heritage ‘zealots’ and NIMBY ‘naysayers’ inhibiting Adelaide’s progress? In short, why is heritage such a dirty word? Recent state government interventions to remove buildings from heritage lists and to significantly constrain Adelaide City Council’s heritage listing processes, along with last year’s axing of the State Heritage Advisory Service were some of the issues highlighted at a lively Hawke Centre forum entitled Has South Australia Given up on Heritage? National Trust SA Chapter President, Professor Norman Etherington chaired the debate and posed a number of questions. Is it true that the preservation of heritage buildings stands in the way of creating a vibrant, livable city? Will it prevent us from reaching our city residential population target of 46,000 people, and has heritage listing been a major obstacle to the planning and realisation of major building projects in the city in the past? A powerpoint tour of his ‘boulevard of broken dreams’ pointed to numerous city and North Adelaide sites where working buildings have been demolished to become long term car parks, or worse, degraded vacant sites, all created by development approvals that have never been realised.   Media commentators and property developers who link heritage legislation with resistance to change are out of touch with how heritage listing now works throughout the world. Clever cities, like Edinburgh, Barcelona, Bordeaux and Prague, treat their historic built heritage as a major asset. They are using UNESCO heritage listing, and the global branding that it brings as a tool for economic development and catalyst for change.   The new small bar legislation is intended to encourage young entrepreneurs to transform the city’s old buildings and unique layout into something even more special. If we don’t actively protect, promote and celebrate those 19th century assets and the stories behind them, Adelaide will predictably and monotonously evolve to look like every other place in the world.