Seventeenth International Conference on the Inclusive Museum

Abstract

One of the highly discussed issues in recent decades is the socio-cultural sustainability of heritage buildings as an expression of cultural identity. As a major link to the history of human settlements, historic castles, and fortresses are considered capacious heritage structures for refunctioning. Likely, bringing a new contemporary function in a successful way to a heritage building can strengthen the heritage significance of the building. The museum function is known as one of the appropriate alternative functions in reusing heritage buildings. Certainly, the sociocultural value of a heritage building enhances the efficiency of contemporary use, by offering an appropriate environment for museum use. Thus, the way of reusing historic castles needs more concentration to make the museum environment effectively used and make continuity of sociocultural aspects of sustainability. So, this study aims to assess the sociocultural sustainability of Kyrenia Castle, as an important monument from the ninth century AD, after its conversion into a museum. The related factors for sustaining the sociocultural aspects of heritage buildings are collected by reviewing relevant literature. Likewise, some successful examples of museum environments in castles are investigated. Although Kyrenia Castle is worthy to implement the museum use, most of the spaces only show tangible objects, excluding intangible cultural heritage as well as limitations in any supportive function. Based on the importance of the sociocultural sustainability of the heritage structure in the success of contemporary museums, this study uses qualitative methodology to assess the reuse of spaces based on the obtained factors.

Presenters

Negin Nazari Moayed
Student, PhD Candidate, Eastern Mediterranean University, Faculty of Architecture, Department of Architecture, Ammochostos, Cyprus

Özlem Olgaç Türker
Professor, Faculty of Architecture, Eastern Mediterranean University, Ammochostos, Cyprus