According to research by the China Great Wall Society, it is not optimistic about the protection of the Great Wall. For example, only 8.2 percent of the Great Wall built in the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) is in good condition presently.

Moreover, in the report released by the Chinese State Administration of Cultural Heritage in 2012, less than 10 percent of the Ming Great Wall is preserved adequately, 20 percent is moderately preserved, and almost 30 percent has disappeared.

The World Monument Fund based in New York announced in 2003 that the Great Wall was among the 100 most endangered historic sites.

Bad weather is one of the main causes of damage to the Great Wall. Dong Yaohui, the deputy of the China Great Wall Society, said that most parts of the masonry structure of the Great Wall are in Beijing and Hebei province. Though they are more stable than the sun-dried mud brick Great Wall, in the rainy seasons during July and August, they can be easily broken by storms.

Local data shows that in the summer of 2012, 36 meters of the Dajing Gate part of the Great Wall in Zhangjiakou, a city in northwestern Hebei province, was damaged by storms; the Shanhai Pass part in Qinhuangdao, a city in northeast part of Hebei province, leaked badly; while some fighting towers of the Wulonggou portionin Laiyuan, a city in western Hebei province, totally collapsed.

Even in the dry seasons, because of lack of protection, the Great Wall in the mountain areas in Hebei province was eroded by mountain springs or even plants. In Funing County, a county in Qinhuangdao, if you slightly touch the wall of the watchtowers, you will find soil peeling off. There are also trees growing in the cracks of the Great Wall.

People living around or travelling to the Great Wall which has not been developed into tourist attractions are also damaging the wall. According to Zhang Heshan, a Great Wall protector in Funing County, more travelers have been exploring the wild Great Wall in recent years. The frequent trampling has led to damage, causing the bricks to loosen, and even walls to collapse. However, there were not enough protectors to patrol around these areas, and not enough money to restore the damage.

Journalists from the Beijing Times also found that people in some villages of Lulong County, in the west part of Qinhuangdao, lived in the houses built with ancient blue and grey bricks. They told the journalists that these bricks were removed from the Great Wall nearby.

Some villagers even sold the Great Wall bricks with carved characters. An unnamed villager in Dongfeng Village told the Beijing Times journalist that the market price of these bricks is 40 to 50 yuan ($6.4 to $8.05) a piece, or even as low as 30 yuan ($4.83). The villagers collect such bricks from the Great Wall without a second thought.

Accordign to Dong Yaohui, it is difficult for the government to fully protect the Great Wall. "In Funing County, there are only 9 people in the department of cultural relics, but they have to go on a 142.5 km tour of inspection. It’s definitely impossible to take good care of the Great Wall by themselves," Dong said.

Dong also stressed that the counties along the Great Wall are relatively poor. Most of the counties surrounding the Great Wall in Zhangjiakou are national assigned poverty counties. Local governments cannot afford to repair and protect the Great Wall, or only invest in the parts which bring in revenue from tourism.

To some people, developing tourism is an effective way to protect the Great Wall. Xu Guohua, the head of Banchangyu Great Wall Development Company, said that the destruction from the villagers has stopped after development. Meanwhile, tourists know which part of the Great Wall is endangered.

"You have to admit that the development of the wild Great Wall brings rules and regulations to both the villagers and travelers. In recent years, the protection of the Great Wall in our scenic spot became much better than the undeveloped parts in our county," said Xu.

However, many point out that it is impossible to develop the whole Great Wall into tourism sites. And the development may bring more visitors to the endangered Great Wall, but not all the tourism development companies are committed to protecting the Great Wall. Instead, some of them only focus on the income from tickets, regardless of the intrinsic value of the Great Wall.

How to protect the disappearing Great Wall? Obviously, it is an important test for Chinese society. Just like what Dong Yaohui said in an recent article, "the Great Wall belongs to everybody of China. The duty of protection of the Great Wall not only belongs to the government, but also to the common people. The most urgent goal for us is to arouse the enthusiasm of the public to protect the Great Wall. "

Source: China Daily [June 30, 2015]

Niyang River Visitor Center

VIA «The centre for visitors on the bank of the mountain river»

“I condemn these destructions and I call on all parties to keep cultural heritage out of the conflict”, said the Director-General of UNESCO, Ms. Irina Bokova. “I am particularly distressed by the news concerning air strikes on heavily populated areas such as the cities of Sana’a and Saa’dah. In addition to causing terrible human suffering, these attacks are destroying Yemen’s unique cultural heritage, which is the repository of people’s identity, history and memory and an exceptional testimony to the achievements of the Islamic Civilization”.

“I call on all parties to refrain from any military use or targeting of cultural heritage sites and monuments, in respect of their obligations under international treaties, particularly the 1954 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its two Protocols, as well as the 1972 World Heritage Convention” said the Director-General, urging for the protection of Yemen’s cultural heritage sites from collateral damage or intentional targeting.

She finally strongly welcomed the announced five-day cease-fire scheduled to begin at 11pm on Tuesday, that will allow for humanitarian relief supplies to be delivered to the country as well as first damage assessments to be carried out.

The Old City of Sana’a was inscribed on the World Heritage list in 1986. Situated in a mountain valley at an altitude of 2,200 m, Sana’a has been inhabited for more than 2,500 years. During the 7th and 8th centuries, the city became a major centre for the propagation of Islam. This religious and political heritage can be seen in the 103 mosques, 14 hammams and over 6,000 houses, all built before the 11th century. Sana’a’s many-storeyed tower-houses built of rammed earth (pisé) add to the beauty of the site.

The Old City of Sana’a was restored through a major campaign launched by UNESCO in the late 1980s and early 1990s, thanks to the contribution of numerous countries and the continuous commitments of the Yemeni people and government.

Yemen has two other cultural World Heritage sites: the Old Walled City of Shibam (1982) and the Historic Town of Zabid (1993), inscribed on the World Heritage in Danger list since 2000.

Source: UNESCO [May 14, 2015]

The Berg Growth

Category: Best Integrated Campaign Led by PR;
Advertiser: MILA/JAKOB TIGGES;
Product/Service: CORPORATE COMMUNICATION.

You desire most what you can’t have. Berliners have it all: world class museums, night clubs, parks, lakes, the sea at a two hour drive - the only thing impossible for flat Berlin remains a veritable mountain; which doesn’t mean we can’t have one… when Berlin’s senate called for ideas in an architectural competition for Berlin’s famous Tempelhof airport we seized the opportunity.

At the time Tempelhof enjoyed unprecedented public attention due to the public row over its future use that had even led to a plebiscite. Our proposal to just imagine and pretend the most beautiful of all mountains on the site of the “mother of all airports” instead of adding another mediocre housing project might be rejected by grey administrators, but would fascinate many people as much as it fascinated us. We speculated on The Berg’s potential to emancipate from the competition to become a topic in its own right.

VIA «The Berg»

The Islamic State's capture of the town of Palmyra late Wednesday was a stunning triumph for the militant group, only days after it captured the strategic city of Ramadi in Iraq's largest Sunni province.

As IS took Palmyra, government forces collapsed in the face of the attacks and Syrian soldiers were seen fleeing the area, activists said. In Damascus, state TV acknowledged that pro-government forces had withdrawn from the town.

Rami Abdurrahman of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the extremists overrun the archaeological site, just to the southwest of the town itself, shortly after midnight Wednesday.

An activist in Homs who goes by the name of Bebars al-Talawy also confirmed that IS now controls the ruins at Palmyra. Both activists said the militants had not damaged the site so far.

A Facebook page close to IS published a statement Thursday, purportedly from the group, saying "the soldiers of the Islamic State" completed their control of Palmyra as well as the town's airport and prison. The capture came after government forces collapsed, "leaving large numbers of dead whose bodies filled the streets," it said.

The ruins at Palmyra are one of the world's most renowned historic sites and there were fears the extremists would destroy them as they did major archaeological sites in Iraq. The UNESCO world heritage site is famous for its 2,000-year-old towering Roman-era colonnades and other ruins and priceless artifacts. Before the war, thousands of tourists a year visited the remote desert outpost, a cherished landmark referred to by Syrians as the "Bride of the Desert."

Residence in Austin, TX

The private residence «Cat Mountain» designed by Cornerstone Architects, located in Austin, Texas, USA. The architects restored the original house and added to it an impressive annex, the owner also worked independently on the design of the interior. The residence blends harmoniously with the natural environment, and sustainable design elements of the project are added respectability.

VIA «The Harmonious Residence in the U.S., state of Texas»

A team of heritage preservation experts inspected the work on Wednesday and announced that the project was complete.

"This repair work has tackled a series of technical challenges to preserve the cultural relic with modern scientific technologies and new materials to ensure the authenticity and integrity of the statue," said Huang Kezhong, the leader of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage Inspection Team.

The team has also suggested the local government should repair the Great Mercy Pavilion, which houses the statue, as soon as possible.

The Dazu Rock Carvings, 60 kilometers west of Chongqing, date to the Song (960-1279) and Ming (1368-1644) dynasties and comprise more than 5,000 statues. They were opened to Chinese visitors in 1961 and foreign visitors in 1980. The carvings were listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999.

"They are remarkable for their aesthetic quality, their rich diversity of subject matter, secular and religious, and the light that they shed on everyday life during this period. They provide outstanding evidence of the harmonious synthesis of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism," the citation said.

The statue of Kwan-yin in Baoding Mountain was carved about 800 years ago during the South Song Dynasty (1127-1276), with 830 hands in an area of 88 square meters in the hillside. It is 7.7 meters tall and 12.5 meters wide, featuring color painting and gold foil. It is the largest of its kind in China.

Water seepage and weather damage caused the statue to deteriorate, and a conservation project began in April 2011. It was listed as the top restoration project by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage.

The work was led by the China Cultural Heritage Protection Research Institute. Experts from Dunhuang Research Academy, the Academy of Dazu Rock Carving, Peking University, Tsinghua University and China University of Geosciences also participated.

Three phases

The project went through three phases from inspection, planning and the actual repair work. The team used X-ray and 3-D laser scanning to collect information needed to effect the restoration.

"We found 34 kinds of viruses on the sculpture that have greatly damaged the historical and artistic value of the carving," said Zhan Changfa, the chief scientist of the restoration project.

They also found that 283 of the statue's 830 hands and arms were damaged. To respect the religious history, the team consulted reference books and pictures to ensure the restoration was accurate.

The major part of the restoration involved attaching a new layer of gold foil to the statue. The original foil was between 83 percent and 92 percent gold. In some parts the statue had six layers of gold foil as a result of restoration work in the past.

An ancient technique from the Song Dynasty was applied. The gold foil was first separated from the statue, washed in pure water and alcohol before being reapplied. Once in place, it was painted with three coats of lacquer.

The statue is due to reopen to the public on June 13, which is China's Cultural Heritage Day.

Author: Tan Yingzi | Source: China Daily [May 30, 2015]