Awarding the UNESCO Asia and Pacific Award to the historic Saduqi house and Zarch aqueduct
According to Aria Heritage report, in this period of the UNESCO Cultural Heritage Protection Awards organized by the Bangkok Regional Office in Thailand, 13 projects from six countries (Afghanistan, China, India, Iran, Nepal and Thailand) were honored by the international jury. The deliberations of the jury were held in November 2022. In the first round, the members reviewed a total of 50 works from 11 countries from across the Asia-Pacific region.
The full list of 2022 winners includes the following:
Excellence Award
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangarhalaya Museum, Mumbai, India
Distinguished award
Qanat Zarch, Yazd, Iran
Golconda Step Wells, Hyderabad, India
Nelson Hayes Library, Bangkok, Thailand
Merit Award
Sadoughi House, Yazd, Iran
Topdara Stupa, Charikar, Afghanistan
Nantian Buddhist Temple, Fujian, China
Dumakonda Fort, Telangana, India
Byculla Station, Mumbai, India
25 temples in Kathmandu, Nepal
Special recognition for sustainable development
West Guizhou Lilong District, Shanghai, China
New design award in heritage fields
M30 integrated infrastructure for power supply and waste collection, Macau region, China
Xiaozhihu Block, Nanjing, China
Feng Jing, head of the UNESCO Bangkok Culture Unit, said at the winners’ announcement meeting: “Awards can make people feel proud and own their heritage.” Given that we are still in the recovery period from the global corona pandemic, it is encouraging to see an increase in the number of entries this year. This year’s registered works have once again raised interesting discussions about the development process of cultural heritage in the Asia-Pacific region. We are seeing more attention to cultural landscapes, including heritage infrastructure systems, that are consistent with a sustainable development approach in our cities and rural areas.
The jury praised the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangarhalaya Museum project for the restoration of “a major civic institution in the historic city of Mumbai” and awarded it the Excellence Award from the UNESCO Bangkok Regional Office.
The jury said at the meeting: “The project is impressive in its scale, and addresses widespread deterioration through informed architectural and engineering solutions, overcoming major challenges during the pandemic.” This project is considered a benchmark for the conservation of World Heritage buildings in India and beyond.
Also, the Sadougi House of Yazd, which dates back to more than 300 years ago, was restored and renovated some time ago and is now called the Sadougi Martyr Culture House. This Qajar house was built based on Yazd architectural style with clay and mud materials. Its clay walls are thick, which acts as heat and cold insulation and provides residents with pleasant air in summer and warm air in winter.
The Zarch aqueduct, which dates back to the pre-Islamic era, is the longest aqueduct in Iran and the world. It is the lifeblood of the city of Zarch, Yazd. Zarch aqueduct has made this area habitable by providing the vital element of water for people and farmers. Zarch aqueduct is a plain aqueduct with a length of about 71 km. Its mother well is 90 meters deep and has more than 2000 wells. Zarach is a city 15 km west of Yazd in the center of Iran.
Of course, in the 40th UNESCO World Heritage Summit held in July 2015 in Istanbul, Zarch Aqueduct was registered in the UNESCO World Heritage List along with 10 other Iranian aqueducts.
The UNESCO Asia-Pacific Prize for Cultural Heritage Conservation is supported by a partnership between UNESCO and the Ng Teng Fong Charitable Foundation from 2021. Under this strategic partnership, the foundation supports five award periods (2025-2021) and a series of special capacities.
Under this partnership, the 2022 award winners through the International Symposium, The next fifty years: Challenges and opportunities for world heritage (November 26-27, 2022), which celebrates the 50th anniversary of the 1972 Convention concerning the Safeguarding of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, are introduced. This international symposium was organized in collaboration with the Asian Academy for Heritage Management at Southeast University and the Beijing Association for the Preservation of Cultural Relics, with generous support from the Ng Teng Fong Charitable Foundation.
In 2020, UNESCO introduced the new category “Special Recognition for Sustainable Development” along with an updated set of award criteria to acknowledge the role and contribution of cultural heritage to sustainable development within the broader framework of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda.
Since 2000, the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards Program for the Protection of Cultural Heritage has encouraged the efforts of individuals and private organizations to restore, protect and transform valuable cultural heritage structures and buildings in the region. By recognizing the efforts of individuals and organizations to restore and adapt historic properties, the awards encourage others to undertake preservation projects in their communities, either independently or through public-private partnerships.
The projects submitted for this program have had various conservation criteria, including the expression of the spirit of the place, technical achievement, appropriate use or adaptation, project interaction with the local community, and project participation in increasing the sustainability of the surrounding environment and beyond.
The call for participation in the 2023 UNESCO Prize cycle will be announced in early 2023. More details will be available on the UNESCO Bangkok website pages.
Report from Asadullah Haqqani
end of message/