Heritage infrastructures
18.09.2025 H14:30-20:00
19.09.2025 H09:00-16:00
18.09.2025 H14:30-20:00
19.09.2025 H09:00-16:00
Heritage infrastructures: Materialities, Flows and Exchanges
Register here to attend on 18.09.2025
Register here to attend on 19.09.2025
Organized in collaboration with EPFL Heritage, Anthropology and Technologies Research Group and the University of Geneva Heritage Lab
The event will be held in English.
Infrastructures whether in material or immaterial sense increasingly shape the expression and nature of heritage. From new techniques or the revitalization of traditional buildings to tourist trails to visitor centres, the changing materialities, flows and exchanges in (un)planned remaking of heritage is often quite visible. However, the infrastructural dimension of heritage is arguably even more far-reaching; from new forms of digitalization, sustainability techniques and bureaucratization to changing politics, investment practices and new players shaping heritage practices and societal impacts. This workshop offers a space for rethinking the relationships between heritage and infrastructure(s) from international to local scales.
PROGRAMME:
18.09.2025 H14:30-20:00
H14:30 Welcome remarks and introduction to Istituto Svizzero
Ilyas Azouzi, Head of Science, Research, and Innovation
H14:45-15:00 Introduction round of participants
H15:00-15:30 Theoretical perspectives and questioning heritage infrastructures, Peter Bille Larsen (University of Geneva) and Florence Graezer Bideau (EPFL)
H15:30-16:00 A network approach to the digitisation of archives and interdisciplinary research: Examining heritage infrastructures at the CDHM, Lauren Riggs and Sohnee Harshey (Geneva Graduate Institute)
H16:00-16:30 AI as New Infrastructure in Heritage Management: HeritageWatch.AI, Yves Ubelmann (HeritageWatch:AI), Ben Gitai (LAND, EPFL)(by Zoom)
H16:30-16:45 Coffee Break
H16:45-17:15 Digital Infrastructures of Urban Heritage: Informal Recognition and Memory Practices in Tehran, Neda Shafeie (University of Geneva)
H17:15-17:45 Pashto Cassette Culture and the Digital Turn: Informal Media Networks and Cultural Marginalization in Pakistan, Ashraf Kakar (Independent Researcher, Pakistan) (by Zoom)
H17:45-18:15 The interplay of Infrastructure thinking and transformation value in Heritage Practices, Rune Frandsen, Silke Langenberg (ETHZ)
H18:15-18:30 Break
H18:30-19:30 The hidden heritage of infrastructure and the infrastructure of hidden heritage? A roundtable and book launch of the new « Heritage Insights » volume. Moderators: Florence Graezer Bideau, Peter Larsen, Ilyas Azouzi (Istituto Svizzero), Alia Bengana (Villa Medici), Isabella Pezzini (Sapienza, Università di Roma)
H19:30 Aperitivo
19.09.2025 H09:00-16:00
H09:00-09:30 Sepik River Men’s Houses: an endangered heritage? Nicolas Garnier (Divine Word University, Madang, Papua New Guinea) (by Zoom)
H09:30-10:00 Emerging support structures for dry stone walling as intangible cultural heritage in Switzerland, Geoffrey Gowlland (University of Geneva)
H10:00-10:30 Towards an ‘active’ protection of historic settlements: Restoring traditional craftsmanship as an immaterial heritage infrastructure, Reda Berrada and Vasileios Chanis (LAPIS, EPFL)
H10:30-11:00 Towards an Immaterial Infrastructure of Heritage: Vernacular Techniques, Regenerative Materials, and Local Resource, Alia Bengana (HEIA Fribourg Switzerland & EAV&T Paris-Est, Villa Medici Fellow 2025–2026)
H11:00-11:30 Coffee Break
H11:30-12:00 Pluriversal infrastructures: Approaching the intersections of technology, society, and heritage cosmopolitics from the archaeology of the contemporary past, Francesco Orlandi (University of Macerata)
H12:00-12:30 How to take care of buildings that care of us? The case of state-built infrastructures for mineral spring baths in Greece, Lydia Xynogala (postdoctoral fellow and lecturer Accademia di Architettura Mendrisio //Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design, HfG Art Research and Media Philosophy)
H12:30-14:30 Break
H14:30-15:00 Higher education infrastructure as heritage: A study of the Ankatso University Campus (Antananarivo, Madagascar), Alice Weil (EHESS, Laboratory LAS, Collège de France) and Quentin Clémence (University Gustave Eiffel, Laboratory IPRAUS)
H15:00-15:30 The return of monuments. New materialities of heritage, Elieth Eyebiyi (Laboratoire d’études et de recherches sur les dynamiques sociales et le développement local, LASDEL) (by Zoom)
H15:30-16:00 General discussion and final remarks, Peter Bille Larsen and Florence Graezer Bideau
Biographies:
Isabella Pezzini, former professor of Philosophy and Language Theory at the Department of Communication and Social Research at Sapienza, Università di Roma, studied in Bologna and Paris with Umberto Eco. She teaches Semiotics, directs LARS (Roman Semiotics Laboratory), and chairs FeDroS (Roman Federation of Semiotics). She has dealt with identity and cultural memory in books and essays on museums, cities, and media representations (In media(s) res, 2025; Dallo spazio alla città. Lettura e fondamenti di semiotica urbana, with R. Finocchi, 2020; Roma in divenire fra identità e conflitti, 2016; Semiotica dei nuovi musei, 2011).
Alia Bengana is a French-Algerian architect, teacher, and writer whose work has focused for nearly 15 years on sustainable materials, especially earth and natural fibers. She combines her architectural practice with teaching at EPFL Lausanne, HEIA Fribourg, and EAV&T Paris-Est. She co-authored Concrete, the End of an Era? (Heidi.news), later adapted into the graphic novel Concrete: An Investigation in Quicksand (Presses de la Cité), which playfully and critically explores our dependence on concrete and points to sustainable alternatives. A regular contributor to the Swiss architecture journal Tracés, she is a fellow at the Villa Medici in Rome in 2025–2026, where she will develop a book project on architectural detailing and the simplification of building practices through the lens of locality, natural materials, and temporality.
Claude Nicolas Ledoux, Eye enclosing the theatre of Besançon, France, 1847. Artwork credits: Anna Karla Almeida, 2025.