Democratic evaluation of architectural heritage

The paper is about the relationship between the value of architectural heritage and the civil society’s preferences. The author argues that, even if evaluators usually deal with strategies and techniques in identifying and measuring no-market values of Cultural Heritage, the increasing demand of participation of civil society and the economic crisis (shortage of public funds and the need of private investors’ involvement) requires a “deliberative” approach: based on public discussion among free and equal citizens, implying the transformation of the preferences of the actors (public institutions, private investors, experts, direct and indirect recipients, civil society). As a consequence, from an evaluative point of view, the technical-operative approach (efficient and effective use of resources) should be replaced by a strategic one (focussed on the public interventions’ values and objectives) which depends on a shared historical knowledge. This requires to implement a “democratic evaluation” that: 1) requires a common field for communication and discussion among the different actors (public institutions, civil society, market agents); 2) is based on justifiable and acceptable reasoning; 3) is able to consider, at the same time, the multiplicity of the values and the involved actors’ viewpoints; 4) takes into account the dependence of preferences from the development of the deliberation process; 5) fosters the redefinition of the problems and the invention of new shared options.