This article provides a review on the new publication of Matthias Ripp titled Meta-model for Heritage-based Urban Development: Enabling Sustainable Growth through Urban Cultural Heritage released by Springer in 2022. The subtitle is an inspirational, hope-giving, new perspective to heritage studies, if one puts aside the growth-based world economic systems towards development.
Matthias Ripp is one of the recognised scholars in the field of urban conservation. His publications over the years have contributed greatly to the development of the field. His recent book is one of the few theoretical approaches that enable a complex understanding of the city using a systemic approach, as well as a good demonstration of a methodological study. By using various theories (urban morphology, governance, and metamodeling theory) and the observations and examinations of earlier heritage-based development processes Ripp proposed the use of a Metamodel and overcome the shortages of the individual models. To develop the elements of the Metamodel, determination of what entities are involved (domain), how decisions have been taken (control levels of logic), and which processes and interactions took place (rationalities and organisational levels) is deemed necessary. For the systemic approach of the Metamodel, the common ground is a systemic view of the real world which tries to take reality and all its complexity into account. Ripp mentions that though the high level of abstraction is primarily a strength of the Metamodel, it can also be a weakness; users must have a deep level of understanding and openness to transfer and apply a Metamodel with such a high level of abstraction to other situations.
The book is well organised in three parts. Part one focuses on the contextual background, identification of the problem, theories, methods and research design; part two talks about the application of research methods; part three reveals the description, application and demonstration of the Metamodel in Regensburg, Germany. After testing the model in Regensburg, revisions to the Metamodel have been made. The book demonstrates how the Metamodel can be used, and presented as a key to solving many problems concerning heritage planning (designing heritage-based urban development processes, improving ongoing ones, to evaluating them). It is argued that the model is also useful for teaching and training, curriculum development, coaching of staff involved in heritage-based development, and scientific studies and set as example for developing other models.
Conservation studies since the 1964 Venice Charter have been regulated by international agendas and mostly by the dominance of ICOMOS as an expert organisation. This, however, resulted in a scientific discipline that lacked distinct theories and approaches. Rather, as a
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