Cultural Heritage: Living Reality

No. 100 JANUARY 2020

When we talk about cultural heritage, we think about things from the past, lost in a corner of collective memory. Wrong! Cultural heritage is a theme of the present, appeals to all and projects itself into the future. It witnesses and expresses values, beliefs and knowledge that are constantly changing and developing. It involves historical memory and contemporary creation: what is tangible and built, what is intangible (traditions and experiences), what refers to nature and landscapes, urban areas and historical gardens, as well as what refers to science and technology. In this essay, Guilherme d’Oliveira Martins presents this new, wide and transversal concept of cultural heritage. It focuses on the expressions of values that bring history and individual existence, reason and emotion into contact, which constitute the raw material of a culture of contact and peace. To remember, he tells us, is to respect ourselves, through the defence, protection and preservation of what has always been there.

Book recommended by the National Reading Plan.