The conservation of the living religious heritage site of Bagan

The paper analyses the living religious site of Bagan as an outstanding example of the richness of intangible aspects associated with the tangible dimensions of built heritage that need to be preserved. The built heritage of Bagan is fully integrated within its historical, cultural and socio-economic context. The presence and variety of historical monuments in Bagan and the limited availability of recorded archives make even more evident the need for specific conservation actions. This contribution stresses the relevance of the ‘living’ features of built heritage as an important condition for the mobilization of local traditional expertise for conservation activities. The case of Bagan is particularly representative since the lack of, and gaps in, such information and documentation represent a serious challenge to the preservation of built heritage. Furthermore, the vulnerability to natural disasters provides additional challenges to effective conservation strategies. Moreover, the incidence of important macro-level threats that jeopardize the preservation of built heritage, like the impact of globalization and its challenges in terms of sustainability of the social and economic development of the site. Such threats are increasingly affecting Bagan which is facing different challenges, such as its increasing globalization. Therefore, this contribution provides a solid body of analysis and evidence useful for conservation purposes in Bagan. With a specific focus on religious Buddhist architecture, factors shaping the construction and the conservation of Bagan built heritage - such as availability of building materials, traditional skills, construction solutions, social issues, religious aspects, but also climate conditions, natural hazards, and human pressures - are considered. Additionally, the proposed case study, outside of the Euro-American tradition (Crouch & Johnson, 2001), identifies different local perspectives in living, using, building and maintaining historic Bagan architecture.