IN STEREO

Unfortunately, we do not control the administration of the city. The municipality of Potosí has its own Director of Heritage – they should have generated policies for conservation of historic heritage. We are talking about the entire historic centre of the city. They should have generated a space between the old part and the new part, a kind of ‘padding’, we will say, so that you cannot go from the patrimonial area directly to the new area, new developments. You should see a process, steps to follow, a series of five blocks that had been planned. These steps had to be aesthetically more organised, with homes with modern typology but with colonial elements. That is what had been thought. We had to have maintained the original structures without touching, without intervening, without enlarging. Unfortunately, we have not done that.

Another of the complex points: you all know that one of the main requirements to be declared heritage by UNESCO is to have a character of originality. For more than 200 years, we had maintained the historic centre in some way, in its original state. We had to maintain that character of originality and had to make policies to preserve, to conserve. What does it mean, that feature of originality? We are talking about the materials with which [the buildings] were built in the past. The whole construction was made of adobe, and we should have kept it adobe in the historical centre. Unfortunately, that has not been done. Much of the material made in adobe has been lost and replaced by new structures, by reinforced concrete, brick… So that is another reason why the heritage is at risk, and it is a problem we must solve. – Tourism & Heritage Official