2022 ICLAFI Symposium and Annual Meeting in İzmir, Turkey

The 2022 ICLAFI Symposium and Annual Meeting was a hybrid event held in İzmir, Turkey, and online from 16 to 18 October 2022. It was hosted by ICOMOS Turkey; the İzmir Metropolitan Municipality; and Tarihi Kemeraltı'nın Yeniden Keşfi (TARKEM; Rediscovery of Historical Kemeraltı), a public–private partnership established to revitalize the İzmir Historical City Centre.

Symposium theme

The theme for the symposium was the efficacy of public–private partnerships (PPPs) in heritage conservation. It aimed to share the practices of different countries in the field of public–private partnerships in heritage conservation, to create an international platform to discuss the pros and cons of different partnership models, and also to determine the ways and strategies as to how to develop such collaborations to serve the effective management of heritage protection practices.

In its concluding statement for the symposium, among other things ICLAFI noted: “The model for project partnerships that may be formed along the axis of the public sector, the private sector, and civil society is to be accountable, responsible, and to have transparent structures that are open to public scrutiny. It is desirable to prioritise public and social benefits, maintain a balance between protection and use, and include economic, social, and environmental dimensions as complementary elements to physical protection. To this end, it is essential that the local community would always be a fundamental component within these partnerships.”

The symposium proceedings are available here.

Heritage tour

Symposium participants visited the Gediz wetland 26 kilometres from İzmir city centre; and the İzmir Historic District, including the Agora of Smyrna, a public assembly place built by the Greeks in the 4th century B.C.E. and then reconstructed by the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius following the destruction of the original agora by an earthquake in 178 C.E.