For an approach to ambiences around assets of cultural interest

Abstract

Surroundings, neighborhood, buffer zones, urban settings and envelopment area or tutelage area are names given, over time in the field of cultural heritage, to the instrument of usage restriction for the preservation of listed cultural properties. Its regulation qualifies as and is a concrete manifestation of the relation between heritage and the place where it is located. Currently, its potential and meanings as an instrument of adjective value to the listed goods have widened significantly, gaining jurisprudence and importance in policies undertaken by Iphan - the Institute of National Historic and Artistic Heritage. The surroundings of cultural properties will then be understood as ambiance, valuing the integration of cultural properties in the urban setting. The term ambiance is used in institutional practice of Iphan with a perspective of understanding the different aspects of the protected goods for a wide preservation by means of their surroundings. From this notion, an interdisciplinary Master’s research on the preservation of cultural heritage was developed, in which a process of heuristic approach was sketched for the ambiance of surroundings of listed properties as a form of wide preservation of cultural heritage. In this process, the most current manifestations of the term were made evident in interdisciplinary investigations of sensible urban approaches that understand it as an integrated factor, allowing the perception of things in spaces experienced by different subjects. An analysis was made of how ambiances allow the understanding of multiple relations among the cultural properties and their surroundings. The repertory developed was applied in field researches made on the knowledge of the ambiances in the surroundings of Portinari’s Former House, located in Brodowski, in the State of São Paulo. More than gathering information, it was possible to create situations to understand existing processes in the surroundings from the perceptions of the people that experience these surroundings of the House. This article presents the research from a reading of the notion of ambiance through approaches that enable the consideration of multiple dimensions for the preservation of cultural heritage, presenting another possible interpretation of the surroundings in a way that sets it as an instrument of preservation. Therefore, it is inserted in the set of works that seek an interdisciplinary treatment of preservation and study of cities and their dynamic processes, aiding in the construction of a notion of surroundings that enables preservation.