On 9 January 2024, Vilnius City Municipality will host the 4th public consultation on the Management Plan for the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Historic Centre of Vilnius.
This document will become a strategic tool for defining how and what we protect in the historic centre of Vilnius. After presentation to the public, the draft Management Plan will be refined in the light of the comments received and sent to the UNESCO World Heritage Centre for review.
Anyone wishing to learn more about the current state of the art in document production is invited to attend and register on the Office.com form.
Exclusive focus on resilience, protection, communities and vitality
The Management Plan for Vilnius Historic Centre is being prepared from May 2023. The plan is prepared by Vilnius City Municipality in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania. According to Rugilė Balkaitė Puodžiūnienė, the project coordinator and heritage protection specialist:
“The Management Plan was prepared by a team of invited experts, each of whom is a professional in his or her field. The plan also draws on the experience of foreign experts and has received valuable input from the public and various institutions. The process was a complex one, but it also allowed us, for the first time in 30 years, to take a holistic view of the various processes involved in the protection and promotion of the Value and to propose possible solutions.”
The main parts of the document are an analysis of the current situation and a draft action plan. The latter consists of four layers, based on the 2015 UNESCO Policy on Integrating a Sustainable Development Perspective into World Heritage Convention Processes, the 2011 UNESCO Recommendation on Historic Urban Landscapes, the conceptual visual interaction of the Sustainable Development Goals of the Stockholm Resilience Centre of Stockholm University, the “SDG Wedding Cake Recommendation”, and others: 1. Resilience; 2. Resilience; 2 . Viability.
Each of these layers has its own set of objectives, with short- and long-term measures in the Action Plan.
Public consultation on the preparation of the document
During the preparation of the document, the interim results of the project were presented during consultations, and residents were invited to discuss and give feedback. In parallel, an online survey on Vilnius Old Town was organised, involving 804 citizens. The summarised results of the survey are available here.
For a summary of the third of four consultations, held on 19 September 2023 at the Energy and Technology Museum, click here
In order to raise public awareness of Vilnius Historical Centre as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, three free guided tours were organised in September-October 2023. During these excursions, cultural heritage specialists introduced the participants to the exceptional universal value of the Historic Centre of Vilnius.
The presentation of the Management Plan for the Historic Centre of Vilnius will be broadcast live online on 13 December at Vilnius City Municipality YouTube account, but the organisers warn that if you are watching the event remotely, you will not be able to participate in the discussions.
All information related to the project is available at: https://vilnius.lt/lt/unesco
Contact persons:
Rugilė Puodžiūnienė (rugile.balkaite@gmail.com) (coordinator for the preparation of the management plan)
Beatričė Umbrasaitė (beatrice.umbrasaite@idvilnius.lt) (public participation issues in the preparation of the management plan)
