In Europe, heritage is an over-used word. Too often it sounds self-congratulatory, is intrinsically linked with identity and national narratives, and instrumentalized as an ostensible link to the historic essence of a community. Economically speaking, heritage tourism is becoming ever more important, which means that more and more money is streamed into the heritage sector. At the same time, a growing awareness of the unsustainability of the construction industry is increasingly placing pressure to adaptively re-use existing buildings.
All these things might be good for the physical preservation of heritage. And yet, increased institutional attention, economic and industrial opportunities, and rising real-estate prices have come to endanger heritage in a novel way. Heritage today is not only ruined through neglect, but also from over-development and speculation. In such cases, multiple and sometimes conflicting layers of meaning are often flattened out into a preconceived image of what heritage is supposed to be: an easily consumable image of an idealized past. But heritage is full of conflicts, both past and present. If the revitalization of heritage means equipping something created in the past with the ability to convey meaning in the future, unveiling these conflicts and including them in the restoration process is just as important as structural renovation and maintenance.
Castles, for instance, were a long-defunct architectural typology in Europe, but today seem to be doing rather well. Across the continent, medieval towers and renaissance walls are markers of cultural capital, offering beds and meals with high added value, concerts and exhibitions for tourist groups, and romantic explorations of picturesque ruins. European castles seem to embody heritage at its best; liked by all, from children who dress up in costumes to seniors who taste wine in the cellar. But castles are also spatial repositories of defunct class structures. They embody the stratification of society in their ceremonial and service stairs; large reception halls; and dark, low downstairs levels for servants. Their courtyards, chapels, and great halls were was never merely functional connective spaces for the owner of the estate, but also an infrastructure of communication, organization, and domination.
When Hrastovec Castle, a fortified complex in rural north-eastern Slovenia, was first built in the thirteenth century, it must have appeared, sitting on top of its hill, as a warning, a propaganda tool, an expression of power. It was later turned into a Renaissance fortress, a sumptuous baroque residence, a seat of court where some of the last mass witchcraft trials in the Habsburg crownlands of Styria took place, and a setting for folk stories about forbidden love. However, after the end of World War I and the dissolution of the Habsburg empire, it became stranded on the geographical fringes of a newly emerging geopolitical world order. Before World War II, Hrastovec Castle was leased to a gymnasium for Russian émigrés; during the war, it became a warehouse and auxiliary for the occupying German military; and after liberation, it briefly became an internment camp for suspected collaborators. Following that, it was turned into a mental institution, only further pushing it to the fringes of society.
From 1948, the cohabitation of the mental health institution and the castle ensured the survival of the complex despite the many pragmatic alterations (in red) to the protected monument. Source: Studio Zorc.
As a mental institution, Hrastovec Castle was residence to around 400 patients from across Slovenia and an important local employer. With this new function, old social and economic relations with the surrounding countryside were cut, but new ones were created. The institution also helped to preserve the baroque interiors due to its necessity of continuous maintenance, while a lack of funds prevented any radical alterations. Today, Hrastovec Castle remains a social care institution, but is being slowly emptied as deinstitutionalization challenges approaches to mental health. In a few years, the castle might cease to be home to anyone for the first time in its 700-year history.
Due to its colorful past, well-preserved state, and uncertain future, Hrastovec Castle today has been transformed into an experimental laboratory by the HEI-Transform research project, where researchers from Slovenia’s public universities, institutes, and academies collaborate with students, mentors, and members of the surrounding communities in order to test a more inclusive and sustainable approach to revitalizing cultural heritage.1 This is all being done within the context of the economic and social upheavals of the twenty-first century—in particular, increasingly severe climate change and the associated tightening of regulations around fossil fuel consumption. Immovable cultural heritage is a victim of these processes. The castle's renovation to meet increasingly demanding contemporary standards is ever more expensive, all while these interventions threaten to compromise its authenticity and meaning. A new paradigm for the protection and revitalization of cultural heritage is needed, one that can ensure its long-term survival while meeting all four pillars of sustainable development: economic, cultural, social, and environmental.
The contradictions within Hrastovec Castle—between past and future, between its poorly understood local and regional identity and reflection on its possible future uses—are typical of the current situation of heritage revitalization in Slovenia. Almost without exception, tourism is taken for granted as the monoprogrammatic function that is capable of maintaining large, expensive buildings of great historical and artistic value. However, one of the key findings of the inclusive revitalization laboratories (RevitLabs) held at Hrastovec Castle was the problem of replacing one institution with another, such as a hotel, for example. Hotels often create problematic delineations between local and guest communities, and require radical interventions in the building in order to meet modern standards of comfort and hospitality.
On-site workshops with students and mentors were devoted to understanding the history of the castle as well as the different values it represents to different users and stakeholders. Photo: HEI-Transform team.
Through a series of workshops in which new theoretical heritage concepts were negotiated with local stakeholder focus groups, transdisciplinary research, spatial analysis, and architectural planning, three different proposals were developed that ceased to approach the castle as a nostalgic caricature of a feudal age and revealed itself as a living structure of multiple co-existing spatial possibilities, values, and meanings. Along the way, through extensive dialogue, conflict, negotiation, and compromise, it became clear that this approach has the potential to fashion heritage as a tool for addressing underlying social and economic issues affecting the surrounding area.
The project “Imprint of time” advocated for minimal interventions consisting of the curated preservation of traces of all phases the castle. Proposal by Dora Balent, Gaja Rejc, Živa Vita Vertačnik, and Studio Zorc.
For example, there were generational differences in how the castle is perceived within the local community: the older generation had, from their youth, regarded the castle as the major local employer and an institution intertwined with the community, while most of the younger generation hadn’t even been to its courtyard or to the occasional public events held in its halls. This led to special consideration being given to programs and spaces for younger generations, such as creative spaces and studios, rental apartments for young people, and the infrastructure that would enable the development of new cultural and economic roles in the community. Together with more permanent residents living in the castle, this could be complemented by other for-profit and not-for-profit amenities that provide new jobs.
The project “Through the courtyard” provided infrastructure for larger events that could not be accommodated within the castle complex's current layout. Proposal by Marie Kinkela, Luka Miklavčič, Neža Sevčnikar, Nina Umer, Studio Zorc.
The heritage of the mental institution was perceived as a liability for the future of the complex by most stakeholders. But these worries were addressed by creating new programs that reflected contemporary approaches to mental healthcare, such as an open mental health center that would serve a first port of call for the general population, as well as by taking a different approach to renovation, conserving the traces of the twentieth century asylum within the former baroque halls. This approach enables the pragmatic and incremental revitalization of parts of the castle based on preserving curated traces of all phases of its past. In this case, resolving conflict didn’t mean balancing the wishes of different stakeholders; instead, understanding the underlying reasons for their reservations led to the development of creative solutions. In the end, they all agreed that the history of the mental institution is and should remain a constituent element of the identity of the castle.
New vertical cores enabled new interconnections of the castle complex and universal accessibility without damaging the integrity of the monument. Proposal by Karolina Pavlič, Pia Pravdič, Dunja Rabađija, and Studio Zorc.
Despite relatively favorable economic indicators, the municipality of Lenart, where Hrastovec castle is located—like the entire north-eastern region of Slovenske Gorice—has been struggling for a long time with the decline of its younger population. This trend is largely due to three central challenges, which have not been systematically addressed since Slovenia became independent nearly thirty-five years ago: precarious work, housing shortages, and inadequate care for young people's mental health. After the closure of the mental health institution, however, Hrastovec Castle can be renovated in a way that addresses these issues on a municipal, if not regional scale.
The proposals for Hrastovec Castle suggest that in order to overcome initial contradictions and conflicts within the process of renovating heritage, we need to think beyond pre-established paradigms such as monoprogrammatic tourism. By reading, understanding, and integrating past and present conflicts within the revitalization of heritage, renovation can become a process, if not of healing, then at least of living with ambivalent legacies. The functional and social histories of heritage are just as resilient, pragmatic, and adaptable as its architectural framework. Heritage is a spatial and social organism, within which it is possible to search for synergies between existing qualities and new opportunities. When adapting to spatial conditions and conflicting visions of different stakeholders, even minor interventions can have major transformative effects. Renovation is less a feat of construction, and more an effort of understanding, mediating, and maintaining the existing. Renovation, in this sense, might reorient the architectural discipline towards the goal of creating more inclusive and sustainable spatial conditions, even if that means resisting the urge to build.
Hrastovec Castle was chosen as one of the four case studies in the research project Heritage for Inclusive Sustainable Transformation (HEI-Transform). Bringing together almost forty researchers, it is uniting Slovenia’s public universities, institutes, and the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, to redefine the approach to revitalization of cultural heritage. See: ➝.