3rd International Symposium on Timeless Design Principles

Cultural Landscapes/Cultural Towns

New Harmony, Indiana • September 7-9, 2007

The 3rd International Symposium on Timeless design principles will focus on the qualities that define communities as cultural towns. The symposium will focus on the convergence of the arts as an individual activity and as an act of community. Cultural landscapes and cultural towns are genuine and authentic places that are deeply rooted in the arts and arts education which identify, create, and develop a town's unique qualities of community. They endeavor to embrace the lives of all citizens. Respecting the past, living the present, and visioning the future, cultural communities look forward and back simultaneously.

Click here for the program schedule

Visit the website at www.newharmonysymposium.com

Presenters will address the following topics:

• Can a town be beautiful?
• Can a town be a work of art?
• The presence of timeless design principles in New Harmony: 1814-2000
• Town planning and growth
• Design guidelines
• Cultural tourism
• Planning challenges for cultural towns
• The art of place
• The spirit of place/ New Lanark/New Harmony

Cultural Town Development Strategies: Three Case Studies

• Savannah, Georgia
  The integration of the Savannah College of Art & Design into historic Savannah.
  
• Storrs, Connecticut
  The University of Connecticut is undertaking the construction of a new town center by 2013.
  
• Sioux City, Iowa
  ISU College of Design in Ames is developing a satellite program betting that architecture, preservation, and design can revitalize a town's downtown.

Attendees will also discuss endorsing the formation of a Cultural Towns Division of the American Planning Association, jointly sponsored by the New Harmony Artists' Guild and the Center for Community & Environmental Design at Purdue University.

Presenters, participants, and town residents will hold a design charrette, "Your Town: A Reinforcing Vision," to discuss the criteria used to identify a cultural town. The charrette will be held on the final day of the symposium. See details about cultural towns below.

Symposium participants and presenters will be limited to 60.

SYMPOSIUM BACKGROUND

The first symposium was held in August 2005. During the event, residents of New Harmony and symposium participants participated in a community design charrette. The outcome of the charette: The community clearly saw itself as a cultural landscape.

The New Harmony Artists' Guild, primary sponsor of the symposium, was asked to identify "sister communities." The Guild and the Center for Community & Environmental Design at Purdue University have been identifying "cultural towns" in America. That list includes more than 120 communities identified as places actively involved in community building in creative ways which resist the homogenization of America by the forces of bigness, greed, and speed.

Four key qualities have been used to identify a community as a cultural town:

• Cultural towns are genuine and authentic places that are deeply rooted in the arts and arts education which identify, create, and develop unique qualities of community.
• Arts institutions, however organized, are 25 percent or more of the total town population.
• A core group of "public entrepreneurs" are actively involved in community building as intensely as private entrepreneurs are in corporation building. These public entrepreneurs, whether lay citizen, artist, musician, restaurateur, architect, landscape architect, historian or community planner, are engaged in community building and are creating with beauty and responsibility. Community cannot be unique, genuine, and authentic without the work of these creative individuals and the individuals will not thrive without contributing responsibly to the community.
• Cultural towns are located in a somewhat isolated cultural landscape which isolates the town from typical rapid suburban growth. Respecting the past, living the present, and visioning the future uniquely, cultural towns look forward and back simultaneously. As a result, they become destinations to be experienced.

The Symposium has been made possible through the support of:

American Planning Association
The Robert Lee Blaffer Foundation of New Harmony, Indiana
New Harmony Artists' Guild of New Harmony, Indiana
Center for Community & Environmental Design — Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
The Efroymson Fund of the Central Indiana Community Foundation of Indianapolis
Patrick Horsbrugh of South Bend, Indiana
Indiana Division of State Museums & Historic Sites
The Cornelius O'Brian Foundation of Indianapolis, Indiana
Jane Owen of New Harmony, Indiana
University of Southern Indiana/ Historic New Harmony Foundation
2 Anonymous Donors
U.S. ICOMOS

RELATED TOPICS

U.S. Committee of ICOMOS
The U.S. Committee of ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites) will be holding its meeting September 6-7, 20007, in New Harmony, and then joining the 3rd International Symposium as participants.

ICOMOS national committees provide a forum where individuals and representatives of institutions concerned with the conservation, protection, rehabilitation and enhancement of the architectural heritage can meet to exchange information and views on principles and practices in the field. The national committee represents the interests of its members, both nationally and internationally. National committees can undertake specific activities on their own initiatives or at the request of their governments. National committees are a channel through which individual specialists in each country take part in ICOMOS international activities including, for example, specific missions entrusted to ICOMOS by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).

36 Sites Apply for United States World Heritage List
In hopes of eventually being placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List of the world's most significant cultural and natural treasurers, the owners or authorized representatives of 36 U.S. sites have applied for inclusion on the new candidate — tentative — list of the U.S. World Heritage nominations. If chosen for the tentative list, they will be considered over the coming 10 years for formal nomination by the Unites States as World Heritage Sites.

Currently, only 830 places around the world, including 20 in the U.S., have this recognition. The preparation of a new tentative list, led by the U.S. Department of the Interior, is the first such endeavor in 25 years and signals a new era in U.S. engagement with the World Heritage Convention, following the reentry of the U.S. to full membership in UNESCO in 2003.

The applications received are a diverse collection of natural and cultural sites, located in 25 states and one U.S. territory. They include two that are proposed for both natural and cultural values. Their owners include several federal agencies, state governments, private foundations, as well as numerous private owners. In order to be included in the new tentative list the proposed sites must meet several U.S. legal prerequisites in addition to meeting the stringent UNESCO nomination criteria. Among the U.S. prerequisites is the written agreement from any and all property owners to the nomination of their property, strong support from stakeholders, including elected officials and a prior official determination of national significance.

Of the 36 sites nominated, six represent cultural towns:

1. Indiana: Historic New Harmony
2. Georgia: Historic Center of Savannah
3. Maine: Shaker Villages of the United States
   New Hampshire: Shaker Villages of the Unites States
   New York: Shaker Villages of the United States
   Kentucky: Shaker Villages of the United States
4. Pennsylvania: Historic Moravian Bethlehem
5. Rhode Island: Guild Age Newport
6. Rhode Island: Colonial Newport