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“People always wish to live and work in a comfortable and aesthetically valuable environment, which inspires, supplements and creates a special mood — a place with a special history. When it comes to the philosophy of heritage preservation, it is important to achieve a balanced and quality-oriented co-existence of heritage and transformation of the contemporary spatial environment creating a high value-added,” underlines Mr Juris Dambis, the Head of the State Inspection for Heritage Protection of Latvia.
On 12 March at 14.30 Mr. Tibor Navracsics, the European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport, will open the Conference, but on 13 March at 15.30 Ms Dace Melbārde, the Minister for Culture of the Republic of Latvia, will lead the discussion on conclusions of the Conference and follow up actions to be done to promote interaction of the cultural heritage and contemporary architecture. The Conference will be held at the Art Academy of Latvia (Address: Kalpaka bulvāris 13, Rīga).
Aim of the conference is to discuss the community-rooted belief that cultural heritage incommodes development; on the contrary – it is a source of inspiration, a resource for creativity and creation of high-quality living space. The best practice examples will be shared and the discussions will be initiated by such experienced experts as British architect Mr John McAslan, a winner of Europa Nostra and many other awards and the author of construction of the Kings Cross station in London, Mr Jean – Francois Chougnet, the director of the Museum for Europe and the Mediterranean and the coordinator of Marselle as the European Capital of Culture 2013, architect Ms Marianne Sætre from Norway representing architects’ bureau Snøhetta,the design authors of Oslo Opera House. In total there are delegates from 19 EU countries already registered to attend the conference.
To involve wider society into discussion, the working documents are available on the conference website heritageriga2015.lv and there will be live online streaming of the conference at heritageriga2015.lv/tiesraide/. Delegates of the conference, students and other individuals are welcome to express their opinion and discuss on the social networks at: Twitter.com/mantojums, Facebook.com/mantojums and forums.mantojums.lv. Draft of the conference participants’ joint statement will be published online during the conference open to any comments and suggestions.
This is one of the three international conferences within the framework of the Latvian Presidency organised by the Ministry of Culture that will be held in Riga during the Annual Creativity Action Week radi!2015 (create!2015) in Latvia. Various discussions, seminars, workshops and other creative events will be held in Riga during this week to promote public awareness and interest about creative and cultural industries, creativity-promoting education, innovations, knowledge economy and creative management.
