BERLIN Jan. 5 (DPA/EP) –
Neuschwanstein Castle has been recognized as a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and opens the door to the recognition of other historicist buildings from the 19th century.
The fairy tale castle built by the Bavarian king Ludwig II (1845-1886) joins the list and overturns the arguments against this type of voice recreations that give more value to the original medieval buildings.
“It’s a special case. It’s very well-known and very popular,” says ethnologist Christoph Brumann. Its inclusion makes it more likely that second-rate cultural sites will be admitted,” argued ethnologist Christoph Brumann.
Buildings like Neuschwanstein “were considered, until not long ago, rather second-class,” according to Brumann, who attributes this to the reason why it took so long to be included on the UNESCO list.
“For a long time, the medieval fantasy of a king was not considered on a par with genuine medieval buildings,” according to Brumann, professor at the Max Planck Institute for Ethnological Research in Halle.
However, some see a danger in these statements. The Italian journalist Marco D’Eramo already warned ten years ago of the so-called “Unesco-cide”, warning that inclusion on the World Heritage list could be a kind of kiss of death.
Too often, the listing seems to want to “cure the disease by killing the patient,” according to Brumann. In other words, he adds, if the list recognizes a site as worthy of protection, this can lead to an unsustainable level of tourism.
“As ethnologists, we are very skeptical about cultural classifications,” Brumann emphasizes. “Ours would probably be different from conventional Western ones.” For this reason, years ago he became interested in the way in which the responsible body selects what is later described as “outstanding universal value.”
Germany now has 1,223 World Heritage sites, 952 of them cultural and 231 natural. Among them, the Cologne Cathedral, the Zollverein coal complex, the Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam and the Bauhaus buildings stand out.