The upcoming PCMA seminar will feature Rohit Jigyasu (ICCROM) with a presentation: „From Rehabilitation, Resilience and Regeneration: Key consideration for the three Rs in Post conflict recovery of Heritage”.
Abstract: Post-conflict recovery of cultural heritage cannot be reduced to the reconstruction of damaged monuments or the replication of historic fabric. Genuine recovery demands a people-centred process that restores the cultural meanings, social functions, and living traditions embedded in heritage places. This lecture explores the “Three Rs” framework—Rehabilitation, Resilience and Regeneration—as an integrated approach to guide recovery efforts in ways that sustain both heritage values and community well-being.
Rehabilitation involves more than repairing physical structures; it strives to reinstate the functions, rituals, and collective practices that give heritage its relevance in daily life. Rehabilitating community life – such as reviving neighbourhood shrines in Bungamati (Nepal) or ensuring continuity of seasonal festivals in post-tsunami Japan—is critical to preserving cultural continuity amid new urban realities.
Resilience focuses on reducing the underlying physical, social, and institutional vulnerabilities that made heritage susceptible to destruction in the first place. Post-conflict rebuilding thus becomes an opportunity to “build back better” – for example, through safer siting, risk-sensitive urban design, and the revival of traditional crafts and knowledge that historically enhanced durability.
Regeneration looks to the future, aligning recovery with new aspirations and inclusive development. Heritage can serve as a driver for peace-building, cultural diversity, livelihood revival, and sustainable urban transformation – as seen in ongoing recovery initiatives in Mosul, L’Aquila, and Stolac.
The lecture argues that the success of post-conflict recovery depends on consensus-building among diverse stakeholders, integration of tangible and intangible heritage, and a territorial approach linking historic cores to wider urban and ecological systems. By embedding the Three Rs into policy and practice, recovery processes can transform crises into opportunities – restoring identity, enhancing disaster and climate resilience, and regenerating heritage as a foundation for a more cohesive and sustainable future.
The seminar will be held on Thursday, 27th November at 2 pm (Warsaw time) on the Zoom platform.
To receive the link, please email: seminarium.pcma@uw.edu.pl
Rohit Jigyasu is a conservation architect and risk management professional from India, currently working at ICCROM as Programme Manager for sustainable urban and built heritage conservation, disaster and climate risk management, and post-crisis recovery.
Rohit served as a UNESCO Chair holder and professor at the Institute for Disaster Mitigation of Urban Cultural Heritage at Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan, where he played a key role in developing and teaching the International Training Course on Disaster Risk Management of Cultural Heritage. He was the elected President of ICOMOS-India from 2014 to 2018, and President of the ICOMOS International Scientific Committee on Risk Preparedness (ICORP) from 2010 to 2019. He also served as an elected member of the Executive Committee of ICOMOS from 2011, and was its Vice President from 2017 to 2020.
Before joining ICCROM, Rohit collaborated with several national and international organizations—including UNESCO, UNDRR, the Getty Conservation Institute, and the World Bank—on consultancy, research, and training related to Disaster Risk Management of Cultural Heritage. He has undertaken post-disaster assessments in India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Japan.
He contributed to the updated policy document on climate action for World Heritage adopted by the UNESCO General Assembly in 2023. He is also the main author of the UNESCO Resource Manual Managing Disaster Risks for World Heritage and the co-editor of the recently published Routledge Handbook on Cultural Heritage and Disaster Risk Management and the Routledge volume on Good Practices for Disaster Risk Management of Cultural Heritage.