Regional Seminar on Historic Urban Landscapes in Central and Eastern Europe

From 29 January to 2 February 2007 the city of St Petersburg, Russian Federation, will host a seminar on "Scientific and Technical Challenges for the Management and Conservation of Historic Centres of Towns inscribed on the World Heritage List" for the region of Central and Eastern Europe. The seminar is being prepared jointly by the Russian World Heritage National Committee, the Russian National Commission for UNESCO, the St Petersburg City Administration, and the UNESCO World Heritage Centre in cooperation with its partners.

The first part of this seminar will focus on UNESCO's initiative to arrive at internationally accepted standards concerning the protection and conservation of Historic Urban Landscapes, following the Vienna Conference on "World Heritage and Contemporary Architecture - Managing the Historic Urban Landscape" (May 2005). It is planned as the first in a series of regional workshops to discuss the concept of Historic Urban Landscapes and tools for their safeguarding.

On 29 and 30 January 2007 the seminar will therefore address the question "Are historic urban landscapes a type of cultural landscape?" and generally debate the general orientations of the Historic Urban Landscape initiative.

On 1 and 2 February 2007 the experts will discuss the specific requirements of the St. Petersburg Master Plan, and the relevance of Historic Urban Landscapes for Central and Eastern European World Heritage cities in view of their specific experiences, challenges and needs.