CCS SPRING 2026 TENSIONS IN TRANSLATING HERITAGE CONCEPTS: ZHONGYUE TEMPLE’S UNESCO BUFFER ZONE
- Starting Time 活動開始時間
March 11, 2026 at 10:00 PM UTC
(In your time zone. 閣下所在時區）
March 11, 2026 at 12:00 PM HST
(In the event local time zone. 活動所在時區)
- Participants 嘉賓
Ben Parker, AIA, is an Assistant Professor in Comprehensive Design at the UH Mānoa School of Architecture and the founder of OBP Design. His urban design research concerns idealized global imperatives and their localized implementations, with a specific focus on urban conservation in China. He is currently at Tongji University in Shanghai as part of the School of Architecture’s Global Track program. He practices as a licensed architect in Hawaiʻi and Texas and is fluent in Mandarin Chinese.
Discussant: Dr. Boya Guo is a Research Professor in the Department of Urban Planning at Tongji University. She received her doctorate from Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2022. Her research explores the intersection of heritage conservation and urban studies, with a specific focus on heritage theory, governance, and the history of cartography. She is particularly interested in the dynamic relationship between cultural power and the historic built environment within today's consumer and media-driven society.
Moderator: Kate A. Lingley is Associate Professor of Art History at UH Mānoa. Her research focuses on Buddhist votive sculpture of the Northern and Southern Dynasties period, with a particular interest in the social history of religious art in medieval China. She is currently working on a book manuscript on the lives of Buddhist women in medieval China, as seen through the votive monuments they dedicated, and an edited collection on the epigraphic evidence for women’s role in early Buddhism across Asia.
- Organizers 主協辦機構
University of Hawai'i at Manoa Center for Chinese Studies
Director, Ming-Bao Yue
Associate Director, Ni Zhang
Academic Support Specialist, Adriana Choi
- Mode 活動形式
- Online
- Venue 地點
- Zoom
- Languages 語言
- English
- Description 詳情
This research investigates how the buffer zone, a heritage concept designed to preserve sensitive sites, has been misapplied in urban conservation contexts, undermining the very heritage it was designed to protect. Using a combination of archival documents, historical research, aerial imagery, and on-site reconnaissance, this paper demonstrates that the buffer zone surrounding Zhongyue Temple, originally intended to safeguard the temple’s integrity, instead became a mechanism for urban clearance and erasure of historical layers. This leads to a broader investigation of the buffer zone as heritage mechanism, tracing its evolution from ecological to urban conservation within the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). While buffer zones have been used for positive effect in ecological and archaeological conservation, when applied to historic urban landscapes or more complex traditional environments, buffer zones in several instances have resulted in the demolition or near-demolition of historically significant structures and settlement patterns.
To translate past to present with more verisimilitude, UNESCO should reconcile the recent implementation of buffer zones with the organization's stated historic urban landscape approach. Anything less would, to paraphrase the Venice Charter, fail to hand heritage on in the full richness of its authenticity.
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