Many European cities are in crisis since most of them are struggling to socially and culturally move forward from the historic and recreational values that made them of interest to the global visitor. In 2011, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) started assessing new forms of placemaking in the historic city through the UNESCO Historic Urban Landscape Approach. The same year, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) highlighted the importance of developing innovative and transversal approaches to examine cultural development in historic human settlements. Within this context, this chapter analyses placemaking in four European historic cities. Transversal approaches on how relational dynamics impact on the historic context will be scrutinized from the realm of the site-specific arts in the city of Belgrade (Serbia), for archaeology the case of analysis is in Bucharest (Romania), for architecture the context is Ávila (Spain) and for urban planning it is Hamburg (Germany). This transversal approach involves using different disciplines to comprehend placemaking from a polyhedral point of view. Therefore, it brings together complementary forms of heritage appropriation – including the construction of the heritage concept over time – methods and strategies that help integrate cultural expressions, practices and products as potential relational dynamics. To do so, we will define stakeholders such as minorities, communities and powerful entities and target groups. Methodologically, approaches will deepen the understanding of phenomenological, dynamic-relational and contextual notions of placemaking that help clarify how historic cities, tools and communities are all interconnected. The discussion will establish parallelisms between the experiences to clarify the implications of placemaking according to the field of approach and the prospects for those places. Cultural expressions and heritage regulation can provide new forms of appropriation and integration in permanent scenarios of the past. Accordingly, contemporary mutable relationships between places and society are at stake in the context of urban planning and the UNESCO Historic Urban Landscape Approach and in defining the future of historic cities. In conclusion, we point towards (1) imagining how placemaking and cultural heritage serve to delineate new forms of heritage-making in the historic city, and (2) to what extent this requires defining ethical forms of culture-based placemaking practices.@en

Former port areas can host diverse urban uses, including maritime ones, providing space for new forms of placemaking at a time of multiple transitions (energy, digital, social) while paying homage to or even taking advantage of former maritime structures and historic access to the sea. This chapter argues for comprehensive approaches to heritage preservation and sustainable development in line with the UNESCO historic urban landscape (HUL) approach and its New Urban Agenda. It explores three examples of policy and design approaches to the preservation, transformation and adaptive reuse of historic water- and port-related structures in light of placemaking concepts at the edge of sea and land, between a working port and a living city. The three case studies explored here include Hamburg (Germany), Koper (Slovenia) and Valencia (Spain) and showcase, respectively, planning-led, urban design-inspired, and community-led approaches for heritage preservation as forms of ethical forms of placemaking. In conclusion, we point towards: (1) imagining how heritage practices that include urban scales in UNESCO heritage sites and other port cities allow us to develop sustainable futures in terms of the economy, the environment and society; (2) understanding that the dynamic relationship of ports and cities and the inherent risks in terms of preservation, reuse and sustainable development requires ethical forms of placemaking to accommodate the New Urban Agenda commitments and the UN Sustainable Development Goals; and (3) emphasizing, selecting and designing equitable forms of transformation in port cities that embrace culture, the environment and the economy sustainably.@en