A project integrating power supply and waste collection, located at Beco dos Faitiões, beside Patio da Eterna Felicidade (Eternal Happiness Courtyard) in the heart of Saint Anthony Parish, has received this year’s UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation.
The award ceremony took place in Bangkok last weekend.
The local project was awarded the prize for New Design in Heritage Contexts. The award considers the work done to integrate this new multipurpose structure into the context of the heritage area.
According to the awarding committee, criteria include aspects such as articulation of the spirit of place, technical achievement, appropriate use or adaptation, the project’s engagement with the local community, and the project’s contribution to enhancing the sustainability of the surrounding environment and beyond.
This was the only award granted in this year’s event to Macau, in an event that also saw the restoration project of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya Museum, in Mumbai, India, win.
In total, 13 projects from six countries including Afghanistan, China, India, Iran, Nepal, and Thailand have been acknowledged with awards by an international jury in this year’s Awards program.
Jury deliberations were conducted in November 2022, when members reviewed 50 entries from 11 countries across the Asia-Pacific region.
Besides the Award of Excellence attributed to the restoration of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya Museum in India, three other projects including the Stepwells of Golconda, Hyderabad, India, the Zarch Qanat, Yazd, Iran and Neilson Hays Library, Bangkok, Thailand received awards of distinction.
Started in 2000, the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation have been supported by a partnership between UNESCO and Singaporean Ng Teng Fong Charitable Foundation since 2021, in a 5-year partnership.
Under this partnership, the 2022 Award winners were publicized through the international symposium, “The Next Fifty Years: Challenges and Opportunities for World Heritage” held over the weekend, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the 1972 convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage.
In 2020, UNESCO introduced a new award category – Special Recognition for Sustainable Development – together with an updated set of awards criteria to acknowledge the role and contribution of cultural heritage to sustainable development within the broader framework of the UN 2030 Agenda.
This year’s award winner was a project from Shanghai, China, related to the West Guizhou Lilong Neighborhood.
With the Macau project included, China clinched four awards this year, the same number as India; in second place was Iran with two; Thailand, Afghanistan, and Nepal received one award each.
