Heritage

TLS Englishness Image

Beowulf to Steampunk

TLS reviews on Englishness and place

Garrison Church

A Church and its Lies

Potsdam’s Garrison Church rises from the grave

Colonial Baroque

Empire of Domes

TLS review on the English Colonial Baroque

Leeds Pool

Back-to-Backs

Leeds’ Unique Housing Legacy 

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Apollo on Monumental Lies

“A knowledgeable and thought-provoking intervention.”

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Charles III: Misguided at best

The king’s love of the traditional has ideological impacts

Military Heritage

Military-Heritage Complex

The uneasy relationship between armies and cultural protection

BD review ML

“Nine brilliant and well-informed chapters”

Emma Dent Coad MP on Monumental Lies

Dezeen Beauty Myth

Think Tanks and Beauty Myth

How Right think tanks influence the beauty debate

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London’s Problem Monuments

The contestation of the capital’s memorial landscape

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Is Putin Targeting Culture?

Ethics of Cultural Protection

Bletchley

Enigma Wrapped Up in a Riddle

Bletchley Park’s problem with interpretation

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Why Monuments Matter

An introduction to Monumental Lies

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Western Arrogance on Parade 

Robert’s contribution to David Chipperfield’s guest edit

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Bridge Across Time

English Heritage’s new span to Tintagel

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Monumental Lies

Robert’s recent book Monumental Lies: Culture Wars and the Truth about the Past is proving a critical success. The book examines the politicisation of the historic environment and reminds us why material evidence matters so much. It has been a book of the year in the Financial Times,  the Art Newspaper and elsewhere. Robert is undertaking a…

Palmyra

Palmyra

The Ethics of Reconstruction. Palmyra

British Council

British Council

Launching the Cultural Protection Fund.

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The Meaning of Mali

Heritage and human rights. The Meaning of Mali

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Gobelki Tepe

The world’s oldest temple. Did architecture begin here?

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Eileen Gray

Can a house have a £MeToo moment? Restoring Eileen Gray’s pioneering house

Crossfire

Target Heritage

From Mali to Bangladesh and beyond, ideology is making a target of cultural heritage.

Tibet

Iconoclasm as genocide warning

Attacks on buildings conveying cultural identity can be a warning of incipient ethnic cleansing or genocide.

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World Heritage Convention at 40

Is the world heritage convention having a midlife crisis? Published as: World Heritage at 40: success or mess? in THE ART NEWSPAPER Number 240, November 2012

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Neues Museum, Berlin

David Chipperfield’s masterpiece used Bevan’s book, The Destruction of Memory as a guide to its critical reconstruction.

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Minaretphobia

Racism is behind the fight against building minarets in the West.

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The Destruction of Memory

One of the ten best architecture books says The Independent.  This analysis of attacks on architecture helped define a new field of study.

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9/11 Memorial

High finance and low politics undermines commemoration at Ground Zero.

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Common Ground

An essay on Islamophobia and the stand-off between heritage and the  avant-garde commissioned for a critical reader accompanying the 2012 Venice Biennale.

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Heritage Journalism

Journalism about historic architecture and places and issues relating to material culture, including looting and provenance and human rights, is a consistent element of Robert Bevan’s heritage advocacy.

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Cultural Genocide

Why culture should be central to the definition of genocide.

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New Orleans

New Orlean’s history and identity are in danger from its misconceived rebuilding programme.