Yin-Chao Lu

"Historical urban area is a sort of storage which is richly filled with developing traces of culture and society. Both the culture and the society are lived when the original residents are dwelling in the area. Nowadays, they are threatened to be disturbed or demolished by urban development, even though, the issues of urban conservation have been discussed for several decades.

Culture, including tangible and intangible, has to be conceived and perceived in the place and the time. It is impossible to get back to the time, but the physical setting of the place maybe preserved in proper ways. In Taiwan, Military Dependants Villages (MDVs), a kind of military community with interesting developing history are undergoing the threat. Some of the villages are protected and adjusted because they are supported by conservationists and government.
The physical settings of MDVs are still there, but the time and sense of place have gone when all or part of the original residents has left and new users are involved in. How can the culture and the society be conserved in the future? What kinds of role can conservationists and new residents play in the conservational acts?

In the paper, two cases, Shi-Shi South Village and Treasure Hill in Taiwan, will be reviewed critically. The conservational methods and procedures will be discussed. Moreover, the paper will evaluate the benefits of the events that are applied to represent culture in the past and to introduce the new culture to citizens. The adjusted historical areas have become the sites of producing and re-producing of culture. It is lived culture, but not the original one."

ABSTRACT
In general, one of the significant aims of conservation for a historical settlement is saving the authentic physical settings and presenting the residents’ culture to the public for reproducing the sense of the place and to pass down its culture to next generations. As same as the fact that it is impossible to retain every perspective of history; in practical aspects of heritage conservation, it is impossible to protect and demonstrate everything of a place. The different selections of historical materials variously describe historical stories, memories and the meanings of a place. On a conserved historical site, the conservation strategies and practices and visitors’ experiences construct the presented narratives of the place. However, still a lot of narratives that offer other meanings of the place are neglected.
Starting with an analysis of theories about the meaning of spaces, this research set uses a multi-layered framework for analysing what the narratives of the conserved sites are presenting. The framework integrates history studies, physical settings analysis, and narratives studies; and then the three aspects may affect people’s conception and perception about the historical landscape. Their experiences may apply to reform the landscape and may product new narratives of the historical landscape.
Before analysing the narratives of Military Dependants Villages (MDVs), this research critically reviews the visions of current cultural heritage conservation; and then it suggests that the criteria of valuing heritage are changeable following the changes in political, economic, social or cultural conditions over time. Furthermore, protecting the authenticity of a heritage is not only keeping its original circumstance, but also has to concern the needs of present people; they have to strike a balance to present the real situation of a historical site. Also, on the aspect of the distinction between tangible heritage and intangible heritage, this research suggests that the feature of combining tangible and intangible aspects of significance in one cultural property should be considered when practicing a conservation project. In addition, on the aspect of the authenticity of contemporary conserved heritage, this research suggests that the authenticity of a conserved heritage cannot be objective, but subjective, and it exists in the communication between people who are related with the site via their perceptions and conceptions.
Based on the suggested multi-layered framework and the suggestions for current cultural heritage conservation, this research set out to explore the narratives of conserved MDVs of Taiwan. First, from the perspective of the history of conservation in Taiwan, the conservation activities of MDVs reveal that the conserved sites are no longer political tools that serve for government and the residents gradually turned their sights from China to the Taiwan where they now live and to the history of the place when the sense of protecting heritage gradually grew among people. Furthermore, this research analysed the meaning of MDVs from the macro perspective, which are relating to the development history of these villages and their spatial and general image, and from the perspective of narratives that are dependent on subjective experiences. The former perspective represents the general image about the conserved MDVs among people; and that is the image of MDVs introduced in museums. The residents’ and people’s narratives and perspectives of organisations about MDVs are neglected. Thus, the perspective of narratives offers other meanings of MDVs and enriches the cultural diversity of MDVs. Last, this research analysed visitors’ experiences to check the result of the conservation strategies of MDVs; and found that MDVs have get rid of the image of ghettos and started to integrate into the society of Taiwan. Moreover, most visitors think that the conserved sites are leisure places with a historical and nostalgic atmosphere.
Therefore, this thesis contributes to offer an analytic framework to explore comprehensive meaning and dynamic sense of place of historical landscape, e.g. MDVs. The analyses can be used to check the results of conservation strategies applied on historical sites. According to the analysis of MDVs and results of conserved MDVs, this thesis suggested the Cultural and Creative Quarter for Tangible and Intangible Heritage of MDVs and Integrated Conservation are two better strategies.