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If nothing changes, Dutch historic buildings and cities will be lost to the floods and the rising seas of climate change. How will we cope with the loss that awaits us? Professor Thijs Weststeijn of the Art History department has written an article for about the implications of the loss of historic heritage.

Identity and belonging in historic heritage

Due to climate change, the Dutch will likely lose much of their material heritage. Rising water levels make ancient foundations of houses rot, and the flooding of rivers in the southeast of the Netherlands earlier this year caused notable damage to a 13^th-century church. Weststeijn wonders how we will cope with the even more substantial loss that awaits us. “So many values and sentiments of identity and belonging are invested in historic heritage.” Yet, in the face of what seems imminent loss, Weststeijn thinks that cultural heritage can offer new perspective on human agency in the face of the climate crisis.

Historic heritage in flux

According to Weststeijn, focusing on cultural heritage might motivate people in new ways. “Heritage has been made by humans and so by human hands we should be able to save it.” This will require a different view that is currently common in Europe. We need to accept that historic heritage has never been stable but is always in flux. “The notion that we can preserve objects, buildings and landscapes in their ‘pristine’ shape is an illusion.” Historic heritage must lose its static component and we should reconsider what it means to ‘save’ it. “On new locations, in new contexts, and adorned with new splendour, Amsterdam’s heritage might acquire unimagined meanings for future generations.”