Ameland, a Dutch Wadden Sea island, is blessed with many historical buildings, such as captains’ houses, which make up picturesque townscapes. Together with the attractions of sandy beaches, these quaint villages attract hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. Ameland also has the ambitious goal …

The way we rebuild our buildings and cities show how we address, acknowledge and accept our history. In war-damaged cities, buildings with scars have the power to communicate the stories of the past. Revealing a difficult history through the built environment can be of added value in terms of knowing …

Sustaining historical buildings does not always align with the ambition to promote sustainability in the built environment. In this paper we explore the dynamics and strategies that spring from this basic tension, by investigating the differences and similarities between expert’s valuation and peoples’ …

This article deals with the question of why the architecture of new gated communities includes references to built heritage. The emergence of ‘gated communities’ in the Netherlands is especially interesting because its diffusion is not primarily driven by distinct urban segregation and the gap between …

The conservation of our heritage buildings is a European wide policy objective. Historical buildings are not only works of art, but embody an important source of local identity and form a connection to our past. Protection agencies aim to preserve historical qualities for future generations. Their work …

Tourism studies carried out on the "Experience Economy" and on "Authenticity" are mostlyfounded on a subjectivist epistemology. In this article it is argued than an objectivist approach offers a valuable counterpart. This approach will be developed on the basis of the ideas as "Kruithof" who proposes …