Impromptu conservation: Symbiosis between tangible and intangible. The case of Thua Thiên Hue, Viet Nam

Despite its evolution over the past two centuries, heritage preservation has stayed primarily a top-down retrospective act with a material bias that entails a separation between tangible and intangible, nature and culture, especially within the postcolonial setting. This paper seeks to reverse such notion by proposing the concept Impromptu Conservation. ‘Impromptu’ indicates something done without a plan or rehearsal; Impromptu Conservation advances alternative tactics of preservation that are spontaneous and non-deliberate, rooted deeply in the everyday life. It refers to intricate habitats where the fabric could be seen as an on-going bottom-up collective project and process of inhabitation and preservation, rejecting the existing binary assumptions and asymmetrical representation present in heritage and postcolonial city discourses. Huế City, Central Vietnam, and its surrouning villages are examined as a case study to explore the potential of this concept in reading and re-intepreting the transformation of and relationship among aging architecture (interior space vs. form language), the urban fabric, and marginal communities’ interventions in the postcolonial city.