Assessing the contribution of adaptive reuse of heritage Buildings to the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage- EL Quseir Fort as a case study

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Tourism Guidance dept., faculty of Tourism and Hotels, Luxor University, Luxor, Egypt

2 Architectural Engineering Department, College of Engineering, The British University in Egypt (BUE), Cairo, Egypt

Abstract

With the Selection of El Quseir Fort as a case study, this article is trying to identify the criteria that have to be taken into consideration to assess the contribution of the adaptively reused heritage buildings to the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage. These criteria were used as a benchmark to assess to which extent the adaptively reused El Quseir Fort managed to safeguard the intangible cultural heritage of El-Quseir city.

The article depends on a detailed analysis of a number of studies about the adaptive reuse of heritage buildings, also four semi-structured interviews were conducted with four Egyptian experts in the field of adaptive reuse and cultural heritage management.

The findings of the article identified a number of standards that can be used as a benchmark to assess the contribution of the adaptively reused heritage buildings to the conservation and safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage, the results indicated that El Quseir Fort that went through an adaptive reuse project during 1997 to 1999 - before the ratification of UNESCO 2003 Convention - played a major role in the safeguarding of the heritage building as well as the intangible heritage of El-Quseir city, despite that, the adaptively reused fort could have played a more effective role if an effective operating plan was put in place.

Keywords