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Sustaining Heritage in South-East Europe: Working with the Council of Europe, 2003–10

John Bold was the project leader for the IRPP/SAAH project (Integrated Rehabilitation Project Plan/Survey of the Architectural and Archaeological Heritage project) carried out by the Council of Europe in collaboration with the European Commission. This became known as the 'Ljubljana Process' in 2008, and is continuing. The purpose of the project was to encourage the heritage-management institutions in the nine countries of South-East Europe (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Kosovo) and to identify significant sites and buildings capable of hosting new economic and social rehabilitation projects. This required numerous visits to all of the countries, innumerable meetings and the refining of historical and presentational texts. 'Heritage-led regeneration' is a familiar concept in the UK but for the participants it was a radically new approach to heritage management, requiring familiarisation and training. The essay, written at the end of the first phase of the project, builds on the author's long experience in built heritage management both in England and for the Council of Europe. It describes the ground breaking, agenda-setting project and its major international impacts, reflecting the social and economic principles of the Council of Europe's Faro Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society. It represents a further development of the author's interim published report ('The Built Heritage of the Balkans: A Rehabilitation Project.' Transactions of the Ancient Monuments Society vol. 52, 2008, pp. 49-63. ISSN: 0951-001X) and provides the intellectual and methodological framework for the illustrated booklets published by the Council of Europe, describing and illustrating the 'Ljubljana Process', which were all written entirely by Bold (The Ljubljana Process – Funding Heritage Rehabilitation in South-East Europe. Council of Europe, Strasbourg, 2008; Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia. Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 2009).