Traditiones 54 (3): 45–74 | COBISS: 1.01 | CC BY 4.0 | DOI: 10.3986/Traditio2025540303
All the Colours of a Historic Facade : Dissonant 
Heritage Narratives about the Restoration of a 
Heritage Building in Multicultural Northern Istria
Neža Čebron Lipovec
Faculty of Humanities, University of Primorska, Slovenia
neza.cl@fhs.upr.si
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0998-5614 
Heritage dissonances in contested territories are 
a challenge for the conservation of built her-
itage as they embody diverging values of the 
numerous communities. The restoration of 
the “Venetian House” in Piran (Slovenia) in 
2016 provides an eloquent example through 
which we can observe the impact of population 
changes on the dynamics of (mis)recognition 
in heritage and highlight the potential of 
participatory practice in such conservation.
 ⬝ Keywords: built heritage conservation, resto-
ration, heritage dissonance, place attachment, 
Venetian House in Piran, Istria
Neskladja v dediščini na spornih ozemljih 
predstavljajo izziv za konservatorstvo grajene 
dediščine, saj odražajo različne vrednote 
številnih skupnosti. Obnova »beneške hiše« v 
Piranu (Slovenija) leta 2016 ponuja zgovoren 
primer, ob katerem lahko opazujemo vpliv 
sprememb prebivalstva na dinamiko (ne)
priznavanja v dediščini in izpostavimo poten-
cial participatornih praks v konservatorstvu. 
 ⬝ Ključne besede: konservatorstvo, restavri-
ranje, neskladja v dediščini, navezanost na 
kraj, »Benečanka« v Piranu, Istra 
Introduction
Three decades after the foundations for a critical stand in heritage studies have been set 
with the publishing of Tunbridge and Ashworth’s seminal text on dissonant heritage, 
the critical heritage studies’ community is facing a turning point and undertaking quite 
diverse paths (Harvey, 2024). It is only in the recent years, with a decades-long lag, 
that the built heritage conservation field has also entered a phase of critical self-reflec-
tion and an active search for overcoming the “epistemological bias towards scientific 
materialism” (Winter, Waterton, 2013: 533) by considering the discursive dimension 
of the built heritage conservation field. This fundamental shift is crucial for the con-
servation practice to open up to community-based and collaborative research, and 
thus to participatory approaches, this way overcoming the marginalization of certain 
stakeholders, namely local residents (Liu et al., 2022). This framework also opens up 
the discussion about the challenges in conserving tangible and immovable heritage in 
multiethnic and multicultural territories, marked by different heritage dissonances due 
to major changes in the demographic structure and the related identities.
A central case for exploring the issue is offered by the conservation project – and 
the related controversies – of the Venetian Gothic House, or ‘Benečanka’, also called 
‘Lassa pur dir’, in Piran/Pirano, northern Istria (Slovenia). This region is marked by a 
Neža Čebron Lipovec 
46 |     Traditiones
turmoiled history throughout the 20th century, with several shifts of borders and rulers 
that ultimately resulted in the processes of mass migration, on both ethnic and ideo-
logical basis, out of and into the region after the Second World War. This, in turn, also 
conveyed major developments of the built environment, framed by the new socialist 
economic and sociopolitical agenda, with the region being annexed to Yugoslavia in 
1954. Alterations in the built environment, however, followed a rather idiosyncratic new 
architectural language, coined by one of the main figures of Slovenian modernism, Edo 
Mihevc (Čebron Lipovec, 2012, 2019a, 2019b). Among the most visible interventions 
was also the late-1950s restoration of the mentioned Venetian Gothic House in Piran, a 
characteristic mark of the main city square for seven decades until it was restored again 
between 2015 and 2016. The latter intervention significantly changed the building’s 
exterior, which triggered a vast public controversy about the values and significance 
of the building itself, but also about the role of heritage protections institutions.
In the present contribution we address the issue of engaged conservation (Chitty, 
2016), particularly in historically contested territories such as Istria, that needs to 
be based on participatory and inclusive approaches, especially in the significance 
assessment and in the planning phase of the conservation projects. We explore the 
heritage discourses that surrounded the case study conservation project of the Venetian 
House in Piran, by paying particular attention to the “trajectories of misrecognitions” 
(Smith, 2022) and the dissonances that underlie them. The analysis uses the seminal 
framework on dissonant heritage as designed by Tunbridge and Ashworth (1996). At 
the same time, we examine how the identified discourses, and dissonances, informed 
(or not) the conservation decisions and interventions, and pinpoint the key potentials 
of participatory processes in the field.1
Methodological aspects
The paper presents the case study of a controversial conservation project through 
the analysis of a public tribune at its core. The public tribune was organised as a 
round table, in Piran on 1 June 2016 (organised by the Institute for the Protection 
of Cultural Heritage of Slovenia, the Maritime Museum of Piran, and the Faculty of 
Humanities of the University of Primorska), dedicated to the public presentation of 
the proposed conservation project of Piran’s Venetian House. At the event, the author 
of this paper was not among the organisers but a member of the public, thus in the 
position of participant observation. Additional sources analyzed consist of 12 media 
news (articles and short notes) in national and local newspapers (Primorske Novice, 
Regionalobala, Delo, Megafon, Outsider), published between 2016 and 2018. As recent 
1 This paper was prepared as part of a phased research in two scientific research projects financed by 
the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency (ARIS): The Potential of Ethnographic Methods in the 
Conservation of Built Heritage in Contested Sites, the Case of Northern Istria (2021–2023; Z6-3226), and 
HEI-TRANSFORM, Heritage for Inclusive Sustainable Transformation (2022–2025; J7-4641).
All the Colours of a Historic Facade
Traditiones     | 47
scholarship highlighted, a prominent tool for supporting community involvement in 
heritage conservation and management are the local social media groups (Liang et al., 
2021; Mavrič, Čebron Lipovec, 2024). In order to identify the narratives, we analyzed 
the debates, comments and posts within the Facebook group Piran, kot je bil nekoč/
Pirano com’era una volta. Among the numerous posts we identified those showing and 
discussing the Venetian House and the volume of comments related to it. Central to 
the analysis were comments expressing statements about the role of the building, and 
particularly its facade. Aside from this ethnological-anthropological approach towards 
the core issue, the present research derives from two foundational historical research-
es: the analyses of the post-war architecture and urbanism in the contested region of 
Istria, carried out over the last 20 years by the author of this article (Čebron Lipovec, 
2012, 2019a); and the site-specific historiographic research about the development of 
the addressed building, conducted mainly by the conservators in charge of the project 
(Kovač, 2002, 2016; Kavčič, Žbona 2016).
Bridging the gap between theory and practice
The heritage studies paradigm turn in the conceptualization of heritage as a cultural 
process has placed focus on its intangible dimensions, setting aside the concern for the 
tangible dimensions and the materiality of heritage (Harrison, 2013; Djabarouti, 2024), 
formerly at the core of heritage practice. It is however at least since the inception of 
the critical heritage studies (CHS) that a call for keeping equal focus on the materiality 
and the agency of objects was constantly present (Harrison, 2013: 31–38), promoting 
the actor-network theory and assemblage theory. The urge for not dismissing the ma-
teriality was reiterated in relation to the CHS’ founding framework in the metatheory 
of critical realism (Skrede, Hølleland, 2019). These assumed shortcomings of the CHS, 
particularly in relation to the heritage conservation practice, were evident also in the 
publications of the leading conservation practitioners and researches, in which the 
original aim of conservation in retaining the historic fabric was underscored, and the 
CHS critical standpoint only mentioned as one of the possible entries into the subject 
(Avrami, Mason, 2019: 20–21), highlighting the division between research for con-
servation practice and pure scholarly projects.
There are several starting points of this highly needed critical engagement in the field, 
marked by the earliest works of the anthropologist of place dr. Setha Low (2002) who 
foregrounded the potentially decisive role of ethnographic methods for conservation. 
The community-based and collaborative practices have been developed for heritage 
management particularly in the international context of the UNESCO sites, focusing on 
value-assessments and the public values of heritage, and cultural mapping as a central 
method (Avrami, Mason, 2019; Clark, 2019). While collaborative approaches had a longer 
Neža Čebron Lipovec 
48 |     Traditiones
stand in urban planning (Sanoff, 2000), in the heritage field, we may identify post-colonial 
archaeology, working with indigenous people as ground-setting for promoting participa-
tion in heritage and also for identifying its risks (Neal, 2015). In line with the heritage 
studies theory, architects in conservation have also started rather recently to focus on 
participation, particulary through place attachment theory (Wells, Stieffel, 2019; Madgin, 
Lesh, 2021) as well as through narrative theory (Walter, 2020); the latter consisting in 
a recent attempt to address the shortcomings and bring together heritage studies, con-
servation, and architecture. It derives from a premodern understanding of innovation 
within tradition, thus deconstructing the modern practice of expert-led decision-making 
by positing narratives as the fundamental source for understanding both the changing 
and “living” of buildings, thus read as “ongoing narratives”, and the empowerment of 
local cultures and communities. In a similar vein, Jonathan Djabarouti (2024) proposed 
the reading of tangible heritage as a socio-material hybrid, placing central focus on the 
integration of the intangible heritage dimensions (use, meaning, symbolism etc.) into 
the assessment of tangible heritage and in the consequent conservation interventions. 
These long-awaited new epistemologies in conservation give finally also a theoretical 
response to the practice-driven approaches to heritage conservation and management 
that, over the last 20 years, evolved from a conventional approach – overlapping broadly 
with the concept of Authorised Heritage Discourse (Smith, 2006) – to a values-led 
approach (Wijesuriya et al., 2013) that aimed to democratise the conservation field, and 
more recently to a people-centred approach (Wijesuriya, 2023), placing a central focus 
on inclusion and community participation. In parallel, also the definition of conserva-
tion shifted from being “the management of change” to “the management of creative 
continuity and socially cohesive heritage practice (rather than management of change)” 
(Chitty, 2017: 2). This in turn matches also the proposal of Gustafson (2019: 28) to call 
the current period of conservation “Conservation 3.0”, thus placing focus on adaptive 
re-use as “an integrated conservation approach in direct interface with citizens while 
respecting historic dimensions, together with a humanistic attitude to heritage, especially 
its intangible, multi-factor quality dimensions”.
Nevertheless, questions remain open as to how to integrate heritage dissonances 
into such multivocal appraisals of heritage, and particularly into the interventions on 
the material. In territories with a contested history, where population change occurred, 
the conservation intervention acquires a much broader responsibility beyond mere 
conservation of materiality and its consonant, or consensual values. Particularly in 
the “maelstrom of (Central) Europe” (Tunbridge, Ashworth, 1996), marked by major 
demographic shifts after WWII (but also prior to that) and the post-war change of 
sociopolitical order, including the position along the Iron Curtain, heritage conser-
vation has been at challenge for over half a century. Focusing this presentation on 
Istria, comparable territories in the maelstrom of Europe serve as reference points, 
with all due awareness that some similarities might only be apparent. We source here 
All the Colours of a Historic Facade
Traditiones     | 49
the comparisons and attain the analytical toolkit for investigating dissonance from the 
seminal work by Tunbridge and Ashworth (1996). In their analysis, the two scholars 
showcased the Central European issues of 20th century dissonance through the examples 
of cities such as Wroclaw/Breslau and Gdansk/Danzig in current Poland, as well as 
Kaliningrad, former Königsberg, in the synonymous Russian enclave on the Baltic; 
all were marked by major population transfers after WWII that redesigned the ethnic 
structure of the urban areas, along with the shift in the ideological regime to Soviet 
Communism. Three main attitudes to the historic built environment by the then-new 
rulers were identified (Tunbridge, Ashworth 1997: 138–139): ‘destroy’ thus inten-
tionally remove, ‘ignore’ through neglect and abandonment, and ‘reinterpret’ and thus 
appropriate. The reading lens is offered by both the key dimensions of dissonances 
(ibid.: 72–84); namely cultural (ethnicity, race, religion, language), and social (class, 
gender, sexual orientation, disability), and by the different facets of disinheritance related 
to the dissonance, which can be intentional or not, complete or partial, temporary or 
long-term, limited or widespread, important or trivial, concealed or obvious (ibid.: 21).
Central for the contemporary conservation practices in territories of population 
change is the relation of the different communities and social groups – “primary” ones 
and newcomers (Weber, 2007; Garrow, 2021) – to their built environment, especially 
how “historic sites create a sense of continuity with the past, embody group tradi-
tions and facilitate place attachment” (Lewicka, 2008: 211). Place attachment, as the 
cognitive-emotional bond between people and place (Altman, Low, 1992), is highly 
informative for heritage significance assessment, namely for understanding how group 
identity, collective memory and place are structured, and particularly among the different 
groups, since it “can create belongingness by symbolically connecting individuals to their 
ancestors and cultures, […] or by reinforcing social ties and community membership” 
(Scannell, Gifford, 2017: 257), it thus has a strong psychological effect. Among the 
key categories that compose place attachment, memory (representing one’s lineage or 
family history and thus placing the individual in time) and sense of belonging (providing 
a sense of “homeness”, rootedness and thus sense of origin and stability) rank at the 
top, followed by a sense of comfort and security (ibid.: 259–260). When place attach-
ment is disrupted – as in cases of forced or voluntary relocation – it can have negative 
implications that lead to alienation and disorientation (ibid.: 256–257). In her seminal 
research on place attachment in territories of shifting borders and population change, 
namely in Lviv/Lwow and Wroclaw/Breslau, Maria Lewicka (2008) pointed out two 
useful concepts: the “ethnic bias” in the collective memories, and the attitudes to the 
“urban reminders”, namely the remains from previous inhabitants, that can either directly 
influence the memory of current inhabitants through conveying historical information, 
or indirectly by arousing curiosity about a place’s forgotten past. She emphasized the 
difference in top-down, national- or ethnic-driven discourse on place attachment, and 
more bottom-up, local-reality oriented appraisals. Lewicka’s key conclusion was that 
Neža Čebron Lipovec 
50 |     Traditiones
“restoration of a forgotten past and coordination of different historical perspectives is a 
prerequisite for a successful approach, while bidding on who suffered more is nothing 
but shameful” (Lewicka, 2008: 228), referring to the concept of competing victimhood.
However, while the new paradigms are evolving on the international scale, the 
Slovenian conservation field remains a clear example of an authorised, and thus mate-
rial-focused, conservation practice. Despite individual attempts by conservators in the 
field to engage inclusively with local stakeholders, as well as by few scholars mainly in 
the field of archaeological management (Pirkovič, 2019) and urban conservation (Golob, 
2019), inclusion and participation remains an exception. Recently, a new institutional 
methodology for significance assessment, the so-called VOD (varstvena območja 
dediščine; heritage protection zones; Hohnec, 2023), promotes a set of criteria which 
could provide space for participatory approaches, but it is at this time still too early 
to assess. There is however one specificity of the Slovenian conservation practice that 
carries an enormous potential for developing participation: the profile of the ethnolo-
gist-conservator. It is one of the official profiles of the conservation experts employed 
by the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Heritage of Slovenia (along with art his-
torians – conservators; architects – conservators, etc.), that mirrors also the evolution of 
the field in the country. Although such profiles are present elsewhere in Central Europe 
and former Yugoslavian countries as well, having this specific profile institutionally 
recognised, the opportunity is offered to introduce also the ethnographic-anthropological 
approaches in the official framework. In fact, a similar attempt to engage ethnological 
approaches in the urban conservation practice to promote participation and investigate 
the community’s perception was carried out in several Slovenian towns already in 
the late 1970s, but within a set of interdisciplinary architectural-ethnological students 
projects, without entering the official practices (Čebron Lipovec, 2021, 2023a).
The facade of the Venetian Gothic House in Piran/Pirano:  
A mirror of socio-political changes
In the case of Piran’s Venetian House, the most incisive intervention – that of painting 
the facade with an intense red colour, however, took place after 1957, when the area 
of Northern Istria was annexed to Slovenia, and thus to Yugoslavia. At that time the 
whole region was undergoing a major redevelopment in order to accommodate the 
new economic and political reality of socialist Yugoslavia, after a decade of diplomatic 
negotiations over territorial claims by both Italy and Yugoslavia, in which the area 
consisted of a temporary buffer-state divided into two zones. The dispute was settled in 
1954 with the London Memorandum which allocated the northern Zone A to Italy and 
southern Zone B to Yugoslavia, so it was only from the mid-1950s that the future of the 
region was decided. The period was marked by several processes, namely modernisation 
All the Colours of a Historic Facade
Traditiones     | 51
through industrialisation, but also a slow proletarianization (with the shift to socialist 
self-management as leading economic paradigm) and Yugoslavization (Čebron Lipovec, 
2019a). In fact, the decade between 1943 (the capitulation or “armistice” of Fascist 
Italy in WWII, and takeover by the Third Reich), the end of the war in 1945 and the 
London memorandum in 1954, saw a progressive change in the demographics due to 
emigration. It reached its peak between 1953 and 1956 when a vast majority of Italian, 
and not only Italian, population left the region, some voluntarily and many not (Hrobat 
Virloget, 2021). The process is termed, mainly by Italian historians, as the ‘exodus’ 
since particularly the urban population left in masses, leaving empty houses that were 
then slowly resettled by the newcomers, mainly Slovenes, from either the hinterland 
of Istria and Trieste, but also from other Slovenian regions, and later from Yugoslav 
republics (Weber, 2007; Kalc, 2019; Hrobat Virloget, 2020, 2021).
In the first two years after the annexation in 1954, the development of the region 
was still subject to different options (Čebron Lipovec, 2019a), related to the choice of 
the location of the new and only Slovenian port. Finally in 1956, the decision to locate 
it in Koper/Capodistria determined the development orientation of the region that was to 
be newly denominated as the ‘Slovenian Coast’. The major directions of development 
were gathered in a spatial plan – the ‘Regional Plan for the Slovenian Coast’ – developed 
by the architect and major exponent of the Communist Party, Edo Mihevc, who had 
drafted the plan between 1959 and 1963, and elaborated it by 1966 (Čebron Lipovec, 
2019a). In this plan, the three cities of the Slovenian Coast were allocated each a par-
ticular role: Koper/Capodistria as the maritime and administrative centre; Izola/Isola 
as the industrial and fishing centre; Piran/Pirano as the future centre of tourism with 
the historic town preserved for its scenic attractiveness, and the nearby 19th century 
spa town of Portorož/Portorose as its mundane tourism resort. Edo Mihevc designed 
also an idiosyncratic architectural language for the region that he called “progressive 
and Mediterranean architecture” (Mihevc, 1963; Čebron Lipovec, 2019a) as a tool for 
preserving the visual continuity of the landscape, by both preserving the open green 
spaces and local flora, as well as by searching for connections between the historic image 
of the cities and the needs of the contemporary architecture. He considered “traditional 
architecture” to be crucial in this aim of continuity, and particularly free of “ethnic or 
political differences” (Mihevc, 1963: 42). As a result, the “Mediterraneanness” of his 
architecture rested in the use of plastic elements as quotes from the vernacular idiom 
– namely pitched roofs with tiles, vertical windows with wooden shutters, pergolas, 
stone cladding, and the use of what he called “earthy” colours. Among these, the most 
used and propagated was the so-called “Venetian red” (Kresal, 2016), identified as a 
manner of respecting the Mediterranean character of the region. Despite the intentions 
about establishing continuity and respecting the historic character, the architect entered 
the national architectural history for his highly controversial approach of demolitions 
of large portions of the historic tissue and building of modernist skyscrapers mainly 
Neža Čebron Lipovec 
52 |     Traditiones
in the historic core of Koper. Part of it was also the dense modernist tourism infra-
structure in Portorož, as well as partial demolitions of the historic tissue in Piran old 
town (Hoyer, 1999).
Mihevc’s planning approach towards the historic environment opens a large chapter 
about the development of the conservation practice, in Slovenia in general. The attitude 
was generally identified as “political urbanism” (Hoyer, 1999) which prioritised devel-
opment over a more nuanced approach to the existing cultural environment; an approach 
broadly known and used during the post-war building boom, identified as “progressist” 
and opposed to the “culturalist”, as termed by Choay (1965). In the case of northern 
Istria, however, the issue acquires a significant symbolic load since Mihevc’s interven-
tions took place in a moment of major restructuring of the identity of the region due to 
the processes of population change, and could thus be read as examples of marquage 
symbolique (Veschambre, 2008).
Fates of the facade of Piran’s Venetian house
The Venetian Gothic House, or “Benečanka” (literally the “Venetian Lady”), also 
known as the “Red House”, is an emblematic historic building on Tartini Square, the 
main public space of the historic town of Piran/Pirano. It was built in the 15th century 
by the local aristocrat family Del Bello, but came into local history as the “Lasa pur 
dir”, meaning in Istro-Venetian dialect “Let them talk”, a statement inscribed in a stone 
plaque on the facade, recalling its origin of being built by a merchant for his mistress 
(Kovač, 2002: 94–98). It was a typical Venetian urban house until it changed function 
on the ground floor and was used as a café in the early 20th century (Kovač, 2020: 
177–178). Written sources about its modifications are scarce, the material analysis and 
restoration investigations, however, showed that it was subject to several adaptations 
and interventions, including the addition of cement plastering on the facade in the early 
20th century, under the supervision of the then leading architect-conservator Ferdinando 
Forlati (Kovač, 2002: 97, 2020: 177–178). The first post-war conservation plan for 
the restoration of the Venetian House was designed in 1957, but it was thoroughly 
reworked by 1959 (Kovač, 2016).
The 1957 plan was focused on restoring the building to become a museum of urban 
housing interior and accommodate the local tourism society; the main architect involved 
then was Marjan Mušič. As of 1959 – when the first draft of Mihevc’s Regional Plan 
was getting its early shape – the plan for the Benečanka was redrawn. It was finally 
decided it was to house the offices of the new main transport company Slavnik, while 
its facade was to be painted red. Notably, today the large Tartini Square is free of traffic, 
while until the early 1990s it was used as a parking lot, including for buses. In 1959, 
a study of the colours of the facades of Tartini Square was prepared by the architect 
Jaroslav Černigoj (Kovač, 2016), who was then (1957–1961) architect-conservator 
at the central Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments in Ljubljana. In his 
All the Colours of a Historic Facade
Traditiones     | 53
reflection about the needed interventions in Piran, Černigoj was very clear that the town 
“should not become a museum […] and the conflict between the old and the new should 
be avoided” (Černigoj, 1960: 8–9), yet he added that all “forces that form life, such as 
economy and transport” (ibid.) should be considered. He highlighted the urban form 
and complex structure of Piran as its main value, and so he called for all interventions 
to respect this historic component, but warned against historicist and Sezession-style 
interventions. He claimed that “copying original details appears unserious” and that “the 
new should be discernibly different from the old, yet the new should be inspired by the 
old” (ibid.: 11). Lastly, he was very critical of the treatment of facades at the time and 
the contemporary plastering techniques, and called for the use of the traditional technique 
of lime mortar that “will be the most resilient and will best preserve the unified image 
of the town, with the genuine earthy pigments” (ibid.: 15). Černigoj’s words – about 
drawing inspiration from, but not copying the historic form – were later almost literally 
reproduced in Mihevc’s text explaining the Regional Plan in the renowned international 
architectural journal Casabella-Continuità in 1963 (Mihevc, 1963: 43).
Between the late 1950s and the early 1960s, several other prominent historic buildings 
in northern Istria were painted red – such as the cloister of the Franciscan Monastery in 
Piran, the Manzioli Gothic-Renaissance house in Izola, or the Totto ex-Gavardo Palace in 
Koper. The red colour was generally called “Venetian red”, as it was supposedly termed by 
the architect Edo Mihevc – in fact, no official written documents report this denomination 
but it is passed down from the architect’s students and collaborators (Kresal, 2016). The 
choice of the dark red colour fitted in the overall architectural idiom that the architect 
coined as “progressive and Mediterranean”, and the adjective Venetian referred to the 
discourse of attempted visual continuity and dialogue with the historic environment. It 
must be remarked that the new colour was not only an issue of tone but also of material, 
since the tone of the colour was intrinsic to the new cement plastering, highly popular 
in the mid 1950s and known under the name of its brand, terranova. It was a cement 
plastering that started to be used already at the end of the 19th century (Kavčič, 2001) 
and was broadly promoted by the mid of the 20th century. The fashion of applying strong 
colours to the facades (as well as in the interiors) was a salient feature of the historicist 
architecture of the 19th century (Sapač, Lazarini, 2015). This repertoire was present also 
in Istria during the 19th-century Austrian rule, of which some traces remain visible to 
this day. Red was particularly used for the so-called case cantoniere, the buildings for 
the public service of road and railway maintenance located along main transport routes, 
characteristic of the late 19th and early 20th century landscape (Contu, 2019). The dark red 
colour was called “Pompeian red”, rosso pompeiano. The use of vivid colours on new, but 
also on historic facades, can thus be classified within a historicist approach; in fact, the 
label “romantically immature” was used to tag (pejoratively) the aesthetics of Mihevc’s 
architecture – as we can read in the text of his major critic, the prominent architectural 
historian Stane Bernik (1968: 96). How much of a conscious reference to the historicist 
Neža Čebron Lipovec 
54 |     Traditiones
approach was present in Mihevc’s oeuvre remains a matter of debate, but the fact is that 
this “invention of tradition” approach was quite evident in his work: also in the case of 
the major renewal plan for Koper (designed from the 1957 on), he foresaw to renew the 
historic town by demolishing the majority of the urban tissue consisting of vernacular 
housing, while retaining major palaces and churches, and (re)building with blocks of 
flats and high-rises in a circular shape, as a reinterpretation of the historic city walls; an 
approach he himself called a middle way between full demolition and total preservation 
(Čebron Lipovec, 2019b). In the case of Piran, it is evident that the backing intention of 
such a historicist approach was not necessarily used to establish an imagined continuity 
of identity but rather an imagined continuity of image that would contribute to the scenic 
effect and picturesqueness (another concept of the 19th century vocabulary) of the historic 
environment preserved for tourism purposes. The choice of red, out of the broader rep-
ertoire of the historicist palette, could be linked with red being the symbolic colour of 
communism; however, this interpretation could not be traced in written documents as an 
explicitly stated intention, neither by the architect nor by the then authorities.
Preserving facades: Sacrificial layer or key architectural component?
In architecture, the facade has at least a twofold role; in the more technical branch of the 
profession, it is considered to be the “sacrificial layer”, but also the “skin of the building” 
which protects the building’s structure from external factors, namely climate effects, and 
it is (or was, historically) thus subject to continuous maintenance and therefore change. 
In the conservation field, however, the facade is an equally important component of 
the architectural whole (Fister, 1979: 121), and so a salient element of its authenticity 
(understood as truthfulness), bearing a broad variety of values – aesthetic, historical, 
spatial, technical, but social as well. Moreover, it is the facade that shows the most 
visible signs of patina, largely pursued by the promoters of the minimal intervention 
and maintenance as the main preservation approach (Muñoz Viñas, 2005). With the 
advent of the first conservation doctrines, aiming at restoring the “original form”, the 
“19th-century habit for ‘scraping’ historic buildings to remove signs of wear, age and 
handling, in order to return them to a stylistic unity […] resulted in both the distor-
tion of features and the removal of all signs of wear, age and handling” (Djabarouti, 
2024: 62). The Slovenian conservation field dealt with this issue thoroughly already 
in the late 1970s when the then-leading conservator-architect Peter Fister, active also 
in the interdisciplinary projects on urban conservation, focused his research on the 
issues of colours of the facade. Based on a broad set of urban restoration projects in 
several Slovenian cities (Škofja Loka, Tržič, Kranj, Ljubljana, Radovljica etc.), in 
his seminal text of 1979, Obnova in Varstvo Arhitekturne Dediščine [Restoration and 
Protection of Architectural Heritage] he provided a succinct overview of the issues 
and then accepted approaches. The latter were based on the clear understanding of the 
layered character of a building facade, particularly within vernacular (urban and rural) 
All the Colours of a Historic Facade
Traditiones     | 55
architecture that only rarely represents a single moment in the past, consequently the 
scholar warned against pursuing the “original”, or first layer (Fister, 1979: 122). He 
did promote, though, the concept of “unity of spatial concept” which consisted in the 
choice to restore that layer of the facade that is aligned with the spatial concept being 
restored (ibid.: 123). This approach was evidently undertaken also in the last, 2016 
conservation project. However, experts agreed that the issue of restoring facades is 
a highly challenging, and most of all responsible task (ibid.: 21). By the end of the 
1980s, the issue gained central attention: Slovenian experts already acknowledged the 
palimpsest character of the buildings but also of the facades. The selection of the layer 
to be presented was based on the following criteria: “the best documented, the best 
preserved, the most fitting to the surrounding, the oldest, the one that the conservator 
likes best, or a palimpsest presentation that no one understands” (Mikuž, 1989: 67). 
The quoted conservator and restorer Janez Mikuž was already then highly critical of 
these approaches, finally concluding that all the listed criteria are a mere illusion and 
contrivance of the monument that should simply be preserved and maintained as it was. 
Most of his critique however was oriented towards the stylistic cleaning approaches, 
still present in his time, that aimed at making the monument “shine in new glitter”, 
which he considered a nonsense, and even more so “shine in its original glitter” which 
he considered “nothing but a mere lie” (ibid.: 67). The Yugoslav senior scholar and 
authority in the conservation field of the time, Ivo Maroević, shared this highly critical 
position particularly about restoring facades at the expense of later historical layers 
(Maroević, 1989). Contemporary conservation-restoration principles promote a similar 
minimal intervention approach (Kavčič, 2001), which is today largely supported by the 
help of digital research and presentation tools (Acke et al., 2021), while the primary 
requirement remains the same as 50 years ago when professor Fister put the need for 
a thorough research through probes and stratigraphy as a precondition (Fister, 1979). 
Considering the contemporary theory of values-based approaches and heritage discourses, 
however, such preliminary research should include also an ethnographic research that 
would reveal the social and affective value of this same facade. In the case of Piran, it 
should have encompassed the assessment of heritage values of the different layers, and 
the potential conflicts between them, by identifying the narratives and related discourses 
that accompanied the heritagization process (Harvey, 2001) as a social process within 
the community and the different stakeholders involved.
Trajectories of dissonances
The Venetian House in Piran was declared a monument of local importance in 1983, with 
all the attributes of the time, thus including also the red facade of 1959. The building is 
property of the Municipality of Piran that rented it to privates for tourism use, until 2014 
Neža Čebron Lipovec 
56 |     Traditiones
to a local association. In 2015 the roof was restored, using new brick tiles typical of 
the historic core of Piran (Kovač, 2020: 178). In the same period, an intensive resto-
ration-investigation of the structure of the plastering brought about information about 
several interventions on both the structure and the facade. In these endeavours, at least 
seven historic layers of the facade were identified, spanning from thick lime mortar to 
cement-based of different thicknesses; among these older layers, there was a typical 
traditional lime-based mortar with brittles of brick that usually conveyed a pinkish 
tone (Nagode idr., 2016; Zupančič idr., 2016). Accordingly, six different versions of 
a potential new lime-based plasterwork were proposed (Kavčič, Žbona, 2016). Based 
on this discovery, the expert decision was taken to remove the outer, 1950s red facade 
made of cement and red paint, and reconstruct the supposed earlier lime-based pinkish 
facade (Kavčič, Žbona, 2016; Kovač, 2016). In 2018, also the architectural fittings in 
stone were restored (Kovač, 2020).
The information about the restoration-investigation insights and the consequent 
decision about the reconstruction of the historic facade reached the public through 
articles in the local newspapers and after the scaffolding was set up. The lack of com-
munication, and particularly any news about the final decision on the fundamental 
change of the colour of the facade, stirred several reactions. The establishment of a 
civil initiative of the inhabitants of Piran against the planned restoration, based on over 
400 signatures collected in a few days, was most eloquent. Following this, on 1 June 
2016, a public round table was organised to present to the public the expert studies 
that brought to the decision. The dissonances in heritage that were articulated in this 
debate can be identified at least along three trajectories. Partly they refer to the feeling 
and labelling of belonging by the different groups in the city, and the consequent 
“continuously fluctuating ascription of the ‘autochthonous’, the ‘immigrant’, and the 
‘virtual’ inhabitants” (Weber, 2007: 161). These categories are not self-evident for Piran 
since the shifts in demography were partly idiosyncratic, and need to be outlined for a 
clear understanding of the case. Several waves of change in populations marked this 
tiny city: first was the post-WWII exodus of the pre-war mainly Italian inhabitants; 
during the exodus, Slovenians from the broader region and the inland regions started to 
move into the empty houses in the 1950s; by the 1970s, then, several of the latter had 
moved to larger and new houses in the nearby Portorož and Lucija; in the meantime, 
more newcomers came from other Yugoslav republics; after the independence in 1991 
and the real estate law of the early 1990s that allowed a highly economic purchase of 
the rented flats, many Piranians bought and later resold at higher prices their flats to 
wealthy new owners from central Slovenia, who converted the housing into weekend 
and holiday flats. The latest major wave, at least since the Slovenian independence, 
was the immigration of Albanians from Kosovo and Macedonia.
All the Colours of a Historic Facade
Traditiones     | 57
Picture 1: Venetian House in Piran with the new pinkish facade, 2025. Photo: Neža Čebron Lipovec.
Neža Čebron Lipovec 
58 |     Traditiones
A textbook dissonance between auhtorised and subaltern discourses
A first clear dissonance arose as a textbook example of the clash between Authorised 
Heritage Discourse, or AHD, and the subaltern, dissenting discourse(s) (Smith, 2006), 
which in fact permeated the whole public debate thereafter. The AHD was embodied 
by the position of the experts in charge of the conservation plan and their colleagues 
specialists, who supported the conventional, exclusively expert-led view on heritage 
values. Their position rested on the principle that “it is our duty to protect the monument 
in its authentic testimonial” and “to improve its authenticity” (Kovač, 2016), where 
“authentic testimonial” referred to its role as one of “the most important architectural 
monuments in Piran” (ibid.), the values of which were primarily aesthetic, or art-his-
torical, because the building is an evident echo of Venice, particularly of the so called 
gotico fiorito in the design of the stone elements (window frames, balcony) on the 
facade, while also the floor plan and disposition were mentioned. The composition 
of the facade plastering, after the restoration probes and the retrieval of the lime-
based mortar with brick brittle, thus composed a key element in the reconstitution of 
the entirety of the supposed historic facade. The discourse beneath this reasoning is, 
again, a textbook example of past approaches to heritage preservation that aimed at 
“stylistic unity” (Jokilehto, 1999: 381), at the expense of removal of later layers and 
especially other assessments of the object. Such an approach rests on the understanding 
of authenticity as “original form”, or at least by restricting the assessment of authen-
ticity to form, design, and material (Jokilehto, 2019). It comprises an understanding 
of authenticity that the professional field, on the international scale, has overcome 
since the 1994 ICOMOS Nara Charter, although the identification of authenticity (or 
authenticities) remains fluid (Muñoz Viñas, 2005). As we saw earlier, the restrictive 
and conservative approach was criticised in the Slovenian professional field as early 
as the late 1980s (Mikuž, 1989). Such a conservative approach is a typical feature of 
the AHD, namely the exclusive focus on material aspects of heritage and expert-led 
assessment (Smith, 2006: 88). In the case of Piran, it also seems to match another AHD 
feature – the search for a univocal presentation of the past. Considering the contested 
interpretations of recent Istrian history, the Venetian period of the region “reflects a 
distant past that does not need to be contested since it is virtually nobody’s past and 
can safely be ‘remembered’”, as it was pointed out for the specific case of Piran by 
one of the earliest anthropological researchers of the Piran tourism-related heritage 
narratives, Irena Weber (2007: 162).
The opposed, dissenting discourse of a part of the local population demanded the 
red colour of the facade be preserved. This narrative highlighted the role of the red 
facade as a key element of collective identity and memory of the local community: 
“We have adopted the red, because three generations have known it red and we think 
it should remain red, especially for the sake of visibility, both in Slovenia and more 
broadly in the world” (Interlocutor 1). Another statement points again to the collective 
All the Colours of a Historic Facade
Traditiones     | 59
meaning of the building, particularly linked to its position on the prominent location 
in the main square:
I have to say that I definitely refuse any other colour. For the simple 
reason that I’m an inhabitant of Piran, because my mother, to this day, 
when she comes to Piran says ‘meet me at the red house’, we all know 
the red house, anyone asks anything – meet me at the red house, we 
know where that is, and besides, she’s going to get lost in the string of 
a hundred houses that are all the same colour in Piran. (Interlocutor 1)
Likewise, the succinct statement: “Benečanka rests in the hearts of all of us” (In-
terlocutor 6), represent a typical example of its role in collective memory and place 
attachment, but also particularly of ‘solastalgia’, or emotional distress when a beloved 
place is being threatened, or already mourned for being lost, usually due to urban renewal 
(Albrecht, 2005: 7; Gregory, Chambers, 2021: 43). In the case of Piran’s community 
of post-war newcomers, it becomes an issue of ontological security provided by the 
known built environment. Ontological security refers to the “confidence that most human 
beings have in the continuity of their self-identity and the constancy of the surrounding 
social and material environments of action” (Giddens, 1991 in Grenville, 2007: 448), 
and the sense of anchored security gets disrupted in wholesale renewals, causing diso-
rientation and loss of past certainties. In the case of newcomers’ communities, namely 
in the three-generations one of the post-WWII inhabitants of Piran, the negative effect 
is even stronger since the rootedness in the space might supposedly be weaker, thus 
cherishing the spatial references to their (relatively short-termed) collective memory. 
Two important remarks from the local inhabitants belonging to the Civil Initiative 
pointed out criticalities about the experts’ position:
Of course, I thank the profession. It’s right that we have you and it’s right 
that you control certain things, but I’m surprised that... this discovery 
of what the Venetian House was yesterday may determine what it has 
to be tomorrow. It’s red today and it was red in ‘83 when it became 
a heritage monument. We hear now that a historical mistake [adding 
the red colour] has been made. Okay, I have to say, to me, a very fine 
mistake … (Interlocutor 1)
And in a more emphatic way: “And what will the experts say in 50 years? Uh, 
horror, what a mistake has been done ...” (Interlocutor 3). Likely in an unreflected way, 
brusquely, this statement embodies a contemporary understanding of both heritage as 
a process in constant evolution, and of authenticity as a superposition of layers equally 
in constant becoming. Another comment pointed to another criticality:
Neža Čebron Lipovec 
60 |     Traditiones
The decision is technically correct, ok, we have seen that you have done 
your research, you have come up with some facts […]. What about social 
acceptability? What about taking into account the wishes of the people 
who now live in the city? I think that your institution was set up to listen 
to the people of today, to live in some kind of harmony. (Interlocutor 1)
This comment embodies the awareness of the local community as being the bearer, 
or at least a central stakeholder in the contemporary approaches to heritage, such as 
the values-led approach. With this remark, the civil society highlighted, unwittingly, 
the fundamental paradigm turn that took place in the conservation profession since at 
least the 1970s which encompassed a “revulsion again professionalism and experts in 
general” (Glendinning, 2013: 325), and democratised the heritage field by expanding 
the array of values that compose the heritage significance from the sole aesthetic and 
historical, to the technical, spatial, social and spiritual value (Avrami, Mason, 2019).
Ethnicity-based difference?
However, another trajectory of dissonance was evidenced clearly, and relates to the 
contested or even difficult past of the region; namely the ethnicity-based dissonance 
between the Italian and Slovenian inhabitants of the city. Speaking in Italian language, 
a member of the Italian community said:
There were already problems in the 1960s, when the inhabitants of Piran, 
of the city, for a decade or so, they were in a bad mood passing through 
the square, watching this red colour. (Interlocutor 3)
It was not explicitly stated that the position related to the Italian community of the 
city, but the narrative can be discerned both in the use of the language as identifyer, 
as well as in the wording about the “inhabitants of the city”. Similar in tone, and 
strongest in message was one of the final comments by another representative of the 
Italian community: 
This abuse that you feel […], of a change of colour, it is because you are 
used to it, you were born with this colour around … but look, the same 
thing happened at the end of the 1950s when the colour was changed. 
Many people suffered from the change in the colour of the facades, from 
the change of the toponymy that no longer exists, that was original, was 
Istro-Venetian and so on. (Interlocutor 7)
The same interlocutor continued, highlighting the relationship with the experts and 
institutions:
All the Colours of a Historic Facade
Traditiones     | 61
But I think that we’re here not to talk and decide on the colour of a 
house facade. We are here … it’s a day of emancipation for Piran. Let’s 
respect the architects, let’s respect the institute of cultural heritage which 
has done an excellent job and is finally restoring in a conservative way, 
not distorting and not making politics for the sake of colour. And so it’s 
worthy of respect, or as the architect said, we will finally have a colour 
worthy of the Venetian House […]. (Interlocutor 7)
Another comment pinpointed the representational value of Venetian architecture 
as the central value and reason for the choice of intervention:
The Venetian House was restored several times, inside and out, but I 
think it’s just rekindling that little bit of Venetian character that is left … 
valorising it as it was valorised by the architects of Venice. (Interlocutor 3)
The quotes resonate partly with the initial assumption we made, referring to previous 
research (Weber, 2007) about the Venetian heritage being a “safe distant past”. Nev-
ertheless, the Venetian character has also been identified several times as an element 
pertaining to the Italian identity in Istria, both in relation to tangible as well as intangible 
heritage (Hrobat Virloget, 2020: 27, 2021: 52), thus placing the Italian community in “a 
privileged position” as the caretakers of the Venetian historical elements that “convey 
a sense of continuity and distinctiveness” (Weber, 2007: 166).
The underlying dissonance could be thus identified as ethnicity-based, or at least linked 
to the legitimation strategy of “primacy of occupation of the claimed area” (Tunbridge, 
Ashworth, 1996: 136) or “indigenousness” (Weber, 2007). Such legitimation strategies 
are often present in heritage narratives also in undisputed areas (cf. Garrow, 2021). 
However, when this legitimation strategy is used in contested territories, it becomes 
a tool of misrecognition and denial of a non-hegemonic group (Smith, 2022). On the 
level of affective value, in this case again we can identify the argument of disrupted 
place attachment due to changes in the built environment – that took place in the late 
1950s when the beige-grey facade was turned red – and its negative psychological 
implications in relation to the sense of security.
The specific case of Piran results in a somewhat paradoxical situation: the signif-
icance assessment of the heritage value of the Venetian House as a Venetian Gothic 
urban house with a bright facade results in the convergence of the discourses of the 
expert authorities in charge and those of the Italian community – designated due to its 
generally unknown and silenced collective memory (Hrobat Virloget, 2020, 2021) as 
a minority group, thus unheard and considered non-hegemonic and subaltern. This is 
even more telling in light of the narratives of members of the Italian community re-
flecting on the neglect of the historic built environment and a hurtful approach to their 
Neža Čebron Lipovec 
62 |     Traditiones
identity (ibid., 2020: 27–28, 2021: 227). In fact, neglect, particularly of inner cities, 
is considered one of the three “approaches” towards heritage in areas of population 
change (Tunbridge, Ashworth, 1996: 139).
However, an ethnicity or primacy-based dichotomic view of the conservation project 
for the Venetian House in Piran, reduced to the antagonism between Italians and Slo-
venians, does not pay justice to this complex case. As both the narratives expressed at 
the 2016 round table, as well as the contemporary active posts on local social media 
show, the support for one or the other option was much more varied. A middle-aged 
member of the Slovenian community contested her community members by saying:
I came to Piran in ‘55, and I remember the city with those houses … And 
then 4 years later we moved to Bernardin, there was this one red house 
there, casa rossa they said, it was a brothel. And then they painted red 
this house in Piran, the Benečanka, and I kind of related it, and I didn’t 
like it. I thought it was a violence, a coarseness. So I’m excited about the 
experts who are going to bring back its noble bright colour. (Interlocutor 5)
On the other hand, posts from some members of the Italian community in the 
Facebook group Piran, kot je bil nekoč / Pirano com’era una volta show old images of 
the Venetian House with its red facade with comments such as “Come era bella rossa” 
(How beautiful it was when it was red) (FB PKN-PCV, Paolo de Luise 29.11.2024), or 
again “Lassa pur dir. Rossa era meglio” (Let them talk, red was better) (FB PKN-PCV, 
Paolo de Luise 26.12.2023). Overall, the majority of the group’s posts favoured preserving 
the red colour. Lastly, in the most recent book Raccontare Pirano / Pripovedovati o 
Piranu (Paliaga, Manzin, 2024) about Piran’s heritage, written in Italian and Slovenian 
and aiming at the general public, the presentation of the Venetian House implicitly 
acknowledges, in the conclusion, the controversy about the latest restoration:
The building underwent a total renewal in the beginning of the 20th 
century. The interior was changed completely. The recent restoration of 
the plaster perhaps unveiled the original one. Before that, the house was 
painted with an intense red colour. (Paliaga, Manzin, 2024: 67)
At the basis of the apparent ethnicity-based dissonance, one additional insight must 
be noticed: the representatives of the two competing discourses and valuings, particu-
larly in the public event, are mainly either Slovenian or Italian middle-aged and elder-
ly-generation members of the community. Absent were the voices of the 1960s–1970s 
newcomers from other Yugoslav republics as well as the specific Albanian community. 
As pointed out by Irena Weber, the latter groups, particularly the Albanians, are never 
present and never included as “Piranians” in other groups’ narratives (Weber, 2007: 166).
All the Colours of a Historic Facade
Traditiones     | 63
Picture 3: Venetian House 
in Piran with the red facade, 
1960s–1970s. Photo: Courtesy 
of KAMRA Regional portal 
of libraries.
Picture 2: Venetian House in 
Piran with the grey facade, 
early 1920s–1930s. Photo: 
Courtesy of KAMRA Region-
al portal of libraries.
Neža Čebron Lipovec 
64 |     Traditiones
Tourism – as source and tool of dissonance
An additional trajectory of dissonance can finally be traced, in relation to the arguments 
supporting primarily the retention of the red colour: the arguments of tourism. In fact, 
several of the narratives in support pointed the role of the visual effect of the former 
red facade as an important marker of the square and the town:
We think it should be red, especially for its visibility both in Slovenia 
and in the wider world. I’m amazed when I talk to a tourist and they 
say ‘what colour? Isn’t it supposed to be red? But it’s the ‘Rotte Haus’! 
I can’t imagine it not being red, and I think it’s right that there is one 
house in the square that attracts attention, that is recognisable in the 
world. (Interlocutor 1)
I know that today Piran is a frenzy, there are tourists from all sorts of 
places, they prefer to sleep in houses where the interiors have preserved 
the old characteristics, in the houses of the past, so not only on the outside 
but in the interior, too, and few houses in Piran, by now, have retained 
such characteristics inside as well … (Interlocutor 4)
Both arguments on the one hand refer to, and also counter, those of the experts: 
the experts aimed at the unity of the image of the square, so against one building 
striking out of the whole; the experts also promoted the complete restoration, including 
the interior, to present the historical value of the building in its entirety. However, 
the major driver for these quoted comments was the instrumentality of the heritage 
site for tourism purposes – and thus for its commodification. Tourism was, however, 
the major driving force also in the late 1950s when the facade was painted red, as 
Piran was set to become the scenic tourist attraction within Mihevc’s Regional Plan 
and its “Mediterranean and progressive” aesthetics. Such preservation approach, 
identified by Tunbridge and Ashworth (1996: 138–139) as “ideologically somewhat 
ambiguous communist policy towards heritage” in contested territories of population 
change, resulted in three main policies, among which the third encompassed “to 
accept the existence of the physical heritage and even to maintain it, but to treat it 
as having aesthetic rather than contemporary political value, focusing on the intrinsic 
qualities of the object rather than its relation to the people who created it”; finally, 
these sites were usually transformed into tourist gems (Tunbridge, Ashworth, 1996: 
136). Preservation for primarily tourism consumption was a general approach since 
the 1960s and culminated in the “heritage boom” of the 1980s that benchmarked the 
commodification of heritage (Harrison, 2013). This trend has been ever-evolving in 
the tourist region of the Slovenian Coast, and particularly in Piran, especially with the 
prevalence of cultural and heritage tourism. It is thus not surprising that the tourism 
All the Colours of a Historic Facade
Traditiones     | 65
discourse underpins the other heritage discourses. It is highly telling, however, of 
cultural dissonances that both the main narratives – pro and anti-red facade – take 
the tourism issue as a central argument.
Dissonances and the conservation field
“Political conversion of a facade” (Kosec, 2016) was the term used in a professional 
journal to tag the process of the Venetian House dispute. The analysis of the three main 
trajectories of dissonances – between authorised expert discourse; between different 
ethnic groups; and versus the tourism role of heritage – however pinpoints topics that 
are specific to the conservation field but actually address some fundamental epistemo-
logical basis of heritage studies. Three such topics can be exposed.
First are the core conservation topics. The transformation of “all the colours” of the 
Venetian House’s facade from the 1950s beige-grey to a “Venetian” red in 1959, and 
then into a pinkish beige in 2015–2016, and the grand dispute that it stirred, reopens 
the apparently technical question about the facade being the sacrificial layer. The term 
itself explains that it is the layer and aspect (also of authenticity) most prone to change; 
which was the case also of Piran. This sacrificial layer firstly bears important historical, 
aesthetic but also strong and controversial social and affective values. From the point 
of view of conservation as a technical field, thus from the heritage science perspective, 
the experts in charge performed a reference type of accurate research. Primarily, the 
technical aspect of the decision to reconstruct the assumed historic lime-based plastering 
was a well-grounded expert decision that followed principles of better sustainability 
and better quality of natural materials. From a historical and aesthetic point of view, the 
decision about the reconstruction, however, raises the debate on the authenticity and the 
equal treatment of all relevant historical layers. Considering that authenticity does not 
refer to the essentialist understanding as original image, but rather to the truthfulness 
of the whole identity (meaning all layers) of the heritage object (Muñoz Viñas, 2005; 
Jokilehto, 2019), the removal of the 20th century layer and colour is at least questionable. 
As we showed, this underpins the main point of critique related to the contemporary 
heritage theory: decisions as to its fate should not have been exclusively expert-led, but 
rather a matter of a shared and informed, and most of all participatory process. Social 
and affective values still represent a “deeply buried and hard-to-admit emotional aspect 
of conservation and restoration” (Grenville, 2007: 458), so the decisions cannot be 
reduced to mere technical or legislative procedures, but rather a collaborative research 
that informs values-led and people-centred approaches. The Piran case was therefore 
an exemplary case of the situation described by scholars as follows: “Where different 
perceptions are not recognized or respected, conflict may arise due to the denial and 
repression of values” (Liu et al., 2022).
Neža Čebron Lipovec 
66 |     Traditiones
The second topic relates to collective memory, place attachment, and issues of onto-
logical security. Since Piran is a typical example of a multicultural as well as contested 
place, namely due to the post-war change in demographics in which minorities and 
majorities switched power positions, the changed facade of the Venetian House conveyed 
a double rupture in place attachment that impacts the sense of belonging, security and 
thus of identity. For the pre-war, mainly Italian inhabitants, used to the beige-grey 
facade of the building, the change to red in the late 1950s represented a major rupture 
in their built environment and thus in the place attachment. Considering that most of 
the pre-war urban community had left with the exodus, the social dimension of place 
attachment was not only disrupted but actually lost (Hrobat Virloget, 2020, 2021: 227), 
where the loss of also the material dimension, meaning the built environment, amplified 
the sense of loss and insecurity. On the other hand, for the several post-war, mainly 
Slovenian and Yugoslav newcomers, who are today the majority in the town, the red 
facade represented – 70 years after the change of colour – an “urban reminder”, thus a 
visible, symbolic element of place attachment. In terms of authenticity, the red colour 
should have composed today an additional historical layer of the authentic, genuine 
character of this building, or “ongoing narrative” (Walter, 2020: 149). Although highly 
disruptive, or even violent towards the pre-war community, the red colour could have 
been read even as “difficult heritage” (Macdonald, 2009). The 1950s transformation 
to red can be interpreted as an act of misrecognition of the pre-war Italian community, 
likewise the top-down decided removal of this red facade can be read as an act of mis-
recognition of a majority of the post-war community as well. The collective memory, 
and related appurtenances, opens the extremely broad issue of defining a “community”. 
Within the limits of the present contribution, let us just remind that critical heritage 
scholarship warns against the use of the conservative and restrictive ethnogenetic 
notion, and suggests the reading of community through the Latourian “actor-network 
theory” as a dynamic network of relationships based on common interests (Waterton, 
Smith, 2010; Harrison, 2013). Furthermore, scholars warn against the use of the term 
“community” itself, since it tends to generates hierarchies and conflicts, if it arises from 
the notion that the “cultural heritage belongs, in first place, to the cultural community 
that generated it, and subsequently to that which cares for it” (Turner, Tomer, 2013: 
188), which leads to process of misrecognitions. In the case of Piran, further research 
would be beneficial to identify the latest heritage discourses, analyzed through the lens 
of the currently unheard groups such as the third-generation descendants of post-war 
Yugoslav newcomers, the recent Albanian immigrants, and the youngsters.
The third topic relates to the concept of community and participation in heritage 
conservation as a central issue for contemporary values-led and people-centred ap-
proaches. Piran’s case indicates that its communities are multiple and fluid, in line 
with contemporary theories on communities as assemblages and fluid networks 
(Harrison, 2013). Most of all, Piran’s inhabitants are active and eager to be involved 
All the Colours of a Historic Facade
Traditiones     | 67
in heritage issues, as proven by the activities of local heritage associations such as the 
Anbot who are the main organisers of the European Heritage Days and other similar 
activities, well-documented in the works by Irena Weber (2007). This in turn offers a 
splendid case of participation, in its highest form, even, on Arnstein’s (1969) partici-
pation ladder – that of full participation from the assessment to the final management 
that leads to empowerment. Being active in a territory of contested history, where parts 
of it still remain silent (or silenced; Hrobat Virloget, 2020, 2021), such as the small 
Italian community that had remained, conflicts over the contested nature of heritage are 
ever-present. So, it is exactly thoughtful participation that takes dissonance not “as an 
exceptional and static problem […], dissonance should be used as a space for mutual 
recognition, acceptance, dialogue and dynamic relationship with the past” (Kisić, 2016: 
289), that offers tools not only for a smarter and resilient heritage conservation, but also 
opportunities to acknowledge the historic misrecognitions and repair, at least partly, the 
ruptures in place attachment, by eventually creating new anchors. As Lewicka wrote 
for Poland and Ukraine, rather than confronting “discrepant ethnic or national versions 
of place histories […] perhaps it would be more efficient to step down to encourage the 
involved parties to carry detective investigations in situ, in order to discover themselves 
the place’s unique and multicultural identity” (Lewicka, 2008: 229); a recommendation 
that meets Walter’s reading of buildings as “ongoing narratives”. In fact, Piran’s case 
was among the main cases that triggered recent research about the potentials and ways 
to improve participation in conservation in Slovenia (Čebron Lipovec, 2021, 2023b), 
considering also the skills of the ethnologist-conservator profile. In this framework, 
a particular new method is being 
developed, called “group memory 
talk” (Čebron Lipovec, 2023b, 2024) 
that takes the heritage dissonances in a 
contested site as the topic to be inves-
tigated collaboratively and through a 
multivocal approach, with the aim to 
identify the shared values and voice 
the differences, and collaboratively 
translate them into guidelines for 
conservation interventions. Similarly, 
the current Slovenian national research 
project HEI-Transform is designing 
a multicriterial approach for con-
servation projects that are based on 
the four pillars of sustainability, and 
foremost on the participation of all 
key stakeholders (Ifko, 2025).
Picture 4: Graffiti “Aliens” on the Venetian House, May 
2022. Photo: Courtesy of Danijel Hugo Ercegovčević.
Neža Čebron Lipovec 
68 |     Traditiones
Had the local community in Piran been called to participate in such a collaborative 
investigation of the history and meanings of the Venetian House, the result would 
most likely have been different – perhaps the new facade would have nevertheless 
been created anew in a “new old” pinkish or other tone, this way repairing the past 
misrecognition, yet the red would have gotten its rightful value as a relevant historical 
layer that determines the identity of some inhabitants. Contemporary digital tools offer 
the only compromise so far – a mobile application has been designed about the city’s 
history that virtually renders the former red facade. However, this tiny attempt again 
mainly addressed the “community of tourists”, while the built environment with the 
pink facade added a new layer to this “ongoing narrative”. As a recent graffiti on the 
house’s side attests, to some, it still remains “alien”.
Research data statement
The author states that the article is based on ethnographic research materials that are 
not classified as research data. All additional information concerning the ethnographic 
research materials are available on reasonable request with the author.
References
Acke, Lien, Kristel De Vis, Stijn Verwulgen, and Jouke Verlinden. 2021. Survey and Literature 
Study to Provide Insights on the Application of 3D Technologies in Objects Conservation 
and Restoration. Journal of Cultural Heritage 49: 272–288. DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
culher.2020.12.003.
Albrecht, Glenn. 2005. ‘Solastalgia’: A New Concept in Health and Identity. PAN – Philosophy, 
Activism and Nature 3: 41–46.
Altman, Irwin and Setha M. Low. 1992. Place Attachment: A Conceptual Inquiry. New York, 
London: Plenum Press.
Arnstein, Sherry. 1967. A Ladder of Citizen Participation. Journal of the American Planning 
Association 35 (4): 216–224.
Avrami, Erica and Randall Mason. 2019. Mapping the Issue of Values. In Values in Heritage 
Management: Emerging Approaches and Research Directions, eds. Erica Avrami, Susan 
Macdonald, Randall Mason, and David Myers, 9–34. Los Angeles: Getty Conservation 
Institute.
Bernik, Stane. 1968. Organizem slovenskih obmorskih mest, Koper Izola Piran. Ljubljana, Piran: 
Mladinska knjiga, Medobčinski zavod za spomeniško varstvo.
Chitty, Gill. 2017. Introduction: Engaging Conservation – Practising Heritage Conservation in 
Communities. In Heritage, Conservation and Communities. Engagement, Participation 
and Capacity Building, ed. Gill Chitty, 1–14. Abingdon: Routledge.
Choay, Francoise. 1965. Urbanisme, utopies et réalités, une antologie. Paris: Editions du Seuil. 
All the Colours of a Historic Facade
Traditiones     | 69
Clark, Kate. 2019. Playing with the Past: Exploring Values in Heritage Practice. New York, 
Oxford: Berghahn.
Contu, Sergio. 2019. Le case rosse: Case cantoniere: biografia culturale di un patrimonio culturale 
minore. In Abitare: Approcci interdisciplinari e nuove prospettive: Medea, eds. Luciano 
Boi, Andrea Cannas, and Luca Vargiu. UNICA Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.13125/
medea-3957.
Čebron Lipovec, Neža. 2012. Arhitekturni pomniki izgradnje Kopra po drugi svetovni vojni. Annales: 
anali za istrske in mediteranske študije, Series historia et sociologia 22 (1): 211–232.
Čebron Lipovec, Neža. 2019a. Post-War Urbanism Along the Contested Border: Some Observations 
on Koper/Capodistria and Trieste/Trst. Two Homelands/Dve domovini 49: 199–220. DOI: 
https://doi.org/10.3986/dd.v0i49.7261.
Čebron Lipovec, Neža. 2019b. “Revolucija mesta”: staro mestno jedro v povojnih urbanističnih 
načrtih za Koper. Zbornik za umetnostno zgodovino, Nova vrsta 55: 245–266.
Čebron Lipovec, Neža. 2021. Etnografske metode in ohranjanje stavbne dediščine. Glasnik 
Slovenskega etnološkega društva 61 (1): 17–29.
Čebron Lipovec, Neža. 2023a. Sodobnost in daljnovidnost slovenske konservatorske izkušnje 
v sedemdesetih in osemdesetih letih: interdisciplinarne raziskave med etnologijo in 
arhitekturo v procesu revitalizacije. Dialogi 59 (1–2): 77–96.
Čebron Lipovec, Neža. 2023b. ‘Memory Talk’ in a Museum in a Contested Land: A Platform for 
Mutual Understanding and a Potential Method for Built Heritage Conservation. Ethnologia 
Fennica: Finnish Studies in Ethnology 50 (2): 75–102. DOI: https://doi.org/10.23991/
ef.v50i2.110014.
Čebron Lipovec, Neža. 2024. Integrating Participatory Approaches in the Procedures of Built 
Heritage Conservation, the Case of Slovenia. In Urban Futures – Cultural Pasts: Sustainable 
Cities, Cultures & Crafts, Vol. 3, Heritage, Culture & Place, ed. Rachel Isaac-Menard, 
406–413. AMPS Proceedings Series.
Černigoj, Jaroslav. 1960. O piranski spomeniški problematiki. Varstvo spomenikov 7 (1958–1959): 
5–20.
Djabarouti, Jonathan. 2024. Critical Built Heritage Practice and Conservation – Evolving 
Perspectives. London, New York: Routledge.
Fister, Peter. 1979. Obnova in varstvo arhitekturne dediščine. Ljubljana: Partizanska knjiga.
Garrow, Hanna. 2021. Living in and Loving Leith: Using Ethnography to Explore Place Attachments 
and Identity Processes. In People-Centred Methodologies for Heritage Conservation: 
Exploring Emotional Attachments to Historic Places: Bridging Concept, Practice and 
Method, eds. Rebecca Madgin and John Lesh, 112–128. Abingdon, New York: Routledge.
Giddens, Anthony. 1991. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in Late Modern Age. 
Cambridge: Polity.
Glendinning, Miles. 2013. The Conservation Movement: A History of Architectural Preservation 
Antiquity to Modernity. New York: Routledge.
Golob, Tomaž. 2019. Participatory Managment of Historic Urban Areas. In Management of 
Cultural Heritage Sites / Upravljanje območij kulturne dediščine, eds. Sonja Ifko in Jelka 
Pirkovič, 69–88. Ljubljana: ICOMOS Slovenija.
Gregory, Jenny and Sandra Chambers. 2021. Longing for the Past: Lost Cities on Social Media. 
In People-Centred Methodologies for Heritage Conservation: Exploring Emotional 
Attachments to Historic Places: Bridging Concept, Practice and Method, eds. Rebecca 
Madgin and John Lesh, 41–64. Abingdon, New York: Routledge.
Neža Čebron Lipovec 
70 |     Traditiones
Grenville, Jane. 2007. Conservation as Psychology: Ontological Security and the Built 
Environment. International Journal of Heritage Studies 13 (6): 447–461. DOI: https://
doi.org/10.1080/13527250701570614.
Gustafson, Christer. 2019. Conservation 3.0 – Cultural Heritage as a Driver for Regional Growth. 
SciresIT (1): 21–32.
Harrison, Rodney. 2013. Heritage: Critical Approaches. Abingdon, New York: Routledge.
Harvey, David. 2001. Heritage Pasts and Heritage Presents: Temporality, Meaning and the Scope 
of Heritage Studies. International Journal of Heritage Studies 7 (4): 319–338. DOI: 
https://doi.org/10.1080/13581650120105534.
Harvey, David. 2024. What’s in a Word? Reflections On, Challenges To, and Possibilities with 
the Achs. International Journal of Heritage Studies 30 (12): 1496–1501. DOI: https://
doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2024.2334226.
Hohnec, Tanja, ed. 2023. Priročnik za vrednotenje kulturne dediščine za določitev varstvenih 
območij dediščine. Ljubljana: Zavod za varstvo kulturne dediščine Slovenije.
Hoyer, Sonja Ana. 1999. Prispevek k preučevanju zgodovine spomeniškega varstva – konservatorstva 
na Slovenskem – primer Slovenska Istra. In Šumijev zbornik, Raziskovanje kulturne 
dejavnosti na Slovenskem, ed. Jadranka Šumi, 365–378. Ljubljana: Znanstveni inštitut 
Filozofske fakultete Ljubljana. 
Hrobat Virloget, Katja. 2020. Urban Heritage Between Silenced Memories and “Rootless” 
Inhabitants: The Case of the Adriatic Coast in Slovenia. In The Routledge Handbook 
of Memory and Place, eds. Sarah De Nardi, Hilary Orange, Steven High, and Eerika 
Koskinen-Koivisto, 22–30. Abingdon, New York: Routledge.
Hrobat Virloget, Katja. 2021. V tišini spomina: »eksodus« in Istra. Koper: Založba Univerze 
na Primorskem. 
ICOMOS Slovenija. 2003. Doktrina I. Ljubljana: ICOMOS Slovenija.
Ifko, Sonja. 2025. O projektu HEI-Transform in konferenci Prilagodljiva ponovna uporaba 
dediščine za krožni trajnostni razvoj lokalnih skupnosti. In Prilagodljiva ponovna uporaba 
dediščine, predstavitev projekta HEI-Transform Dediščina za vključujočo trajnostno 
preobrazbo, Ljubljana, 10.-12. 9. 2025, ed. Sonja Ifko, 1-2. Ljubljana: Fakulteta za 
arhitekturo Univerze v Ljubljani.
Jokilehto, Jukka. 1999. A History of Architectural Conservation. Rome: ICCROM.
Jokilehto, Jukka. 2019. Questions of Authenticity. Conversaciones…con Herb Stovel 8: 55–72. 
Kalc, Aleksej. 2019. The Other Side of the ‘Istrian Exodus’: Immigration and Social Restoration 
in Slovenian Coastal Towns in the 1950s. Two Homelands/Dve domovini 49: 145–162. 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3986/dd.v0i49.7258.
Kavčič, Mateja. 2001. Ometi na arhitekturnih spomenikih / Plasterwork on Architectural Monuments. 
Varstvo spomenikov 39: 197–212.
Kavčič, Mateja and Nina Žbona. 2016. Predstavitev restavratorskih sondiranj in načrtovanih 
posegov na Benečanki. Oral presentation, 1.6.2016, Piran.
Kisić, Višnja. 2016. Governing Heritage Dissonance: Promises and Realities of Selected Cultural 
Policies. Amsterdam: European Cultural Foundation. 
Kosec, Miloš. 2016. Benečanka – bela ali rdeča? Outsider, 3 May. URL: https://outsider.si/
benecanka-bela-ali-rdeca (accessed 10.11.2024).
Kovač (Guček), Mojca Marjana. 2002. Pirano, via del IX Corpo 2, la “Veneziana”. In Dioecesis 
Justinopolitana: l’arte gotica nel territorio della diocesi di Capodistria, eds. Radovan 
Cunja and Samo Štefanac, 94–97. Koper/Capodistria: Museo regionale.
All the Colours of a Historic Facade
Traditiones     | 71
Kovač, Mojca Marjana. 2016. Predstavitev stavbnega razvoja Beneške hiše v Piranu. Oral 
presentation, 1.6.2016, Piran.
Kovač, Mojca Marjana. 2020. Piran – hiša Benečanka. Varstvo spomenikov 54: 177–178. 
Kresal, Janez. 2016. Edo Mihevc: Izbrana dela. Ljubljana: Beletrina.
Lewicka, Maria. 2008. Place Attachment, Place Identity, and Place Memory: Restoring the 
Forgotten City Past. Journal of Environmental Psychology 28: 209–231. DOI: https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2008.02.001.
Liang, Xiaoxu, Yanjun Lu, and John Martin. 2021. A Review of the Role of Social Mediafor the 
Cultural Heritage Sustainability. Sustainability 13 (article n.1055).
Liu, Yang, Xin Jin, and Karine Dupre. 2022. Engaging Stakeholders in Contested Urban 
Heritage Planning and Management. Cities 122 (103521). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
cities.2021.103521.
Low, Setha M. 2002. Anthropological-Ethnographic Methods for the Assessment of Cultural 
Values in Heritage Conservation. In Assessing the Values of Cultural Heritage, ed. Marta 
de la Torre, 31–49. Los Angeles: Getty Conservation Institute.
Macdonald, Sharon. 2009. Difficult Heritage: Negotiating the Nazi past in Nuremberg and Beyond. 
London, New York: Routledge.
Madgin, Rebecca and James Lesh. 2021. People-Centred Methodologies for Heritage Conservation: 
Exploring Emotional Attachments to Historic Urban Places. Abingdon, New York: 
Routledge. 
Maroević, Ivo. 1989. Identitet fasade. Varstvo spomenikov 31: 13–16.
Mavrič, Tim and Neža Čebron Lipovec. 2024. Social Media Groups in Interaction with Contested 
Urban Narratives: The Case of Koper/Capodistria, Slovenia. Urban planning 9 (article 
no. 7083): 1–18. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.17645/up.7083.
Mihevc, Edo. 1963. Piano regolatore della costa slovena. Casabella–continuità 280: 40–53. 
Mikuž, Janez. 1989. Kaj početi z originalom. Varstvo spomenikov 31: 63–70.
Muñoz Viñas, Salvador. 2005. Contemporary Theory of Conservation. Oxford: Elsevier 
Butterworth-Heinemann.
Nagode, Klara, Nina Žbona, Katja Kavkler and Janez Kromar. 2016. Piran, Tartinijev trg, Ulica XI. 
Korpusa, EŠD 514 – Hiša Benečanka. In Konservatorski načrt za fasade, Mapa 04, Piran 
– Hiša Benečanka, EŠD 514. Ljubljana: Zavod za varstvo kulturne dediščine Slovenije.
Neal, Cath. 2015. Heritage and Participation. In The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary 
Heritage Research, eds. Emma Waterton and Steve Watson, 346–365. New York: 
Palgrave Macmillan.
Paliaga, Daniela and Alberto Manzin. 2024. Raccontare Pirano / Pripovedovati o Piranu. 
Piran: Comunità autogestita della nazionalità italiana di Pirano / Samoupravna skupnost 
italijanske narodnosti Piran.
Pirkovič, Jelka. 2019. Beyond Rules and Regulations: Exploring Innovative Horizons of Cultural 
Heritage Management. In Management of Cultural Heritage Sites / Upravljanje območij 
kulturne dediščine, eds. Sonja Ifko and Jelka Pirkovič, 9–26. Ljubljana: ICOMOS Slovenija.
Sanoff, Henry. 2000. Community Participation Methods in Design and Planning. New York: 
John Wiley & Sons.
Sapač, Igor and Franci Lazarini. 2015. Arhitektura 19. stoletja na Slovenskem. Ljubljana: Muzej 
za arhitekturo in oblikovanje, Fakulteta za arhitekturo. 
Scannell, Leila and Robert Gifford. 2017. The Experienced Psychological Benefits of Place 
Attachment. Journal of Environmental Psychology 51: 256–269.
Neža Čebron Lipovec 
72 |     Traditiones
Skrede, Joar and Herdis Hølleland. 2018. Uses of Heritage and Beyond: Heritage Studies Viewed 
Through the Lens of Critical Discourse Analysis and Critical Realism. Journal of Social 
Archaeology 18 (1): 77–96. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1469605317749290.
Smith, Laurajane. 2006. Uses of Heritage. London, New York: Routledge.
Smith, Laurajane. 2022. Heritage, the Power of the Past, and the Politics of (Mis)Recognition. Journal 
for the Theory of Social Behaviour 52: 632–642. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/jtsb.12353.
Tunbridge, John E. and Gregory J. Ashworth. 1996. Dissonant Heritage: The Management of 
the Past as a Resource in Conflict. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.
Turner, Michael and Tal Tomer. 2013. Community Participation and the Tangible and Intangible 
Values of Urban Heritage. Heritage & Society 6 (2): 185–198. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1
179/2159032X13Z.00000000013.
Veschambre, Vincent. 2008. Traces et mémoires urbaines, enjeux sociaux de la patrimonialisation 
et de la destruction. Rennes: PUR Editions. 
Walter, Nigel. 2020. Narrative Theory in Conservation: Change and Living Buildings. London, 
New York: Routledge.
Waterton, Emma and Laurajane Smith. 2010. The Recognition and Misrecognition of Community 
Heritage. International Journal of Heritage Studies 16 (1–2): 4–15. DOI: https://doi.
org/10.1080/13527250903441671.
Weber, Irena. 2007. Heritage Narratives on the Slovenian Coast: The Lion and the Attic. In 
Cultural Heritage as Reflexive Traditions, eds. Ulrich Kockel and Mairead Nic Craith, 
158–170. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 
Wells, Jeremy C. and Barry L. Stiefel. 2019. Human-Centered Built Environment Heritage 
Preservation: Theory and Evidence-Based Practice. New York, Abingdon: Routledge.
Wijesuriya, Gamini. 2023. Evolution of Conservation Approaches: Embracing a People-Focused 
Approach. Antropología: Revista Interdisciplinaria Del INAH 12: 75–86.
Wijesuriya, Gamini, Jane Thompson, and Christopher Young. 2013. Managing Cultural World 
Heritage. Rome, Paris: ICCROM-ICOMOS-UNESCO.
Winter, Tim and Emma Waterton. 2013. Critical Heritage Studies. International Journal of 
Heritage Studies (19) 6: 529–531. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2013.818572.
Zupančič, Matej, Nina Žbona, Damjan Nered, Saša Stržinar, Robert Kuret and Mateja Kavčič. 2016. 
Piran, Tartinijev trg, Ulica XI. Korpusa, EŠD 514 – Hiša Benečanka. In Konservatorski 
načrt za fasade, Mapa 03, Piran – Hiša Benečanka, EŠD 514, ed. Zavod za varstvo 
kulturne dediščine Slovenije. Ljubljana: Zavod za varstvo kulturne dediščine Slovenije.
Fieldwork material
Hand-noted and partly recorded at the public roundtable in Piran on 1 June 2016:
Interlocutor 1, female 50–60 years, Slovene. 1.6.2016, Piran
Interlocutor 2, female 60–70 years, Slovene. 1.6.2016, Piran 
Interlocutor 3, female 50–60 years, Italian. 1.6.2016, Piran.
Interlocutor 4, female 50–60 years, Italian. 1.6.2016, Piran. 
Interlocutor 5, female, 60–70 years, Slovene. 1.6.2016, Piran. 
Interlocutor 6, female, 60–70 years, Slovene. 1.6.2016, Piran. 
Interlocutor 7, female 50–60 years, Italian. 1.6.2016, Piran. 
All the Colours of a Historic Facade
Traditiones     | 73
Social media sources
Facebook Piran, kot je bil nekoč / Pirano com’era una volta, Paolo de Luise, 29.11.2024.
Facebook Piran, kot je bil nekoč / Pirano com’era una volta, Paolo de Luise, 26.12.2023.
Vse barve zgodovinske fasade: neskladni dediščinski narativi 
ob obnovi spomeniške stavbe v večkulturni severni Istri
Prispevek se osredinja na vlogo dediščinskih neskladij v konservatorstvu, torej 
ohranjanju historičnega grajenega okolja, in povezavo s teoretskimi izhodišči 
kritičnih dediščinskih raziskav. Konservatorsko stroko je v zadnjih dveh deset-
letjih zaznamoval prehod iz konvencionalnega pristopa, ki je v rokah izključno 
strokovnjakov, k vključujočemu pristopu, ki temelji na vrednostih in vrednotah 
za vse (values-led approach), ter k sodobnejšemu, na ljudi osredinjenemu 
pristopu (people-centred approach). Poseben pomen imajo neskladja v večkul-
turnih prostorih, kjer se je prebivalstvo korenito spremenilo. Tako je bilo v Istri 
vse 20. stoletje, posebej pa po 2. svetovni vojni, ko je prišlo do t. i. eksodusa 
(ne samo) italijanskega prebivalstva, obenem pa se je opazno spremenilo tudi 
grajeno okolje. V prispevku analiziramo diskurze, ki so spremljali konserva-
torske posege na beneškogotski hiši »Benečanka« v Piranu, ko je bila v letih 
2015–2016 restavrirana fasada, po velikih posegih iz 50. let prejšnjega stoletja. 
V prvem, teoretskem poglavju sta koncept stavbne dediščine in avtentičnosti 
kot »stalna pripoved« (ongoing narrative; Walter, 2020) predstavljena vzporedno 
s sodobnim konceptom dediščine kot procesom. Orisane so kategorije neskladja 
(Tunbridge, Ashworth, 1996), poseben poudarek je namenjen konceptu nave-
zanosti na kraj. V drugem poglavju sta predstavljeni dediščinska problematika 
Istre in spreminjanje grajenega okolja od časa po drugi svetovni vojni, ko je po 
načrtu Eda Mihevca novoimenovana regija Slovenska obala dobila novo regi-
onalno modernistično arhitekturno podobo, katere pomemben del so bile prav 
barve fasad kot element ustvarjanja vizualne kontinuitete krajine. V osrednjem 
poglavju predstavimo historiat poznogotske hiše »Benečanka«, ki je leta 1959 
dobila novo, rdečo cementno fasado, slednjo pa so v letih 2015–2016 odstranili 
in nadomestili z domnevno rekonstrukcijo predhodne rožnate barve, ki temelji 
na tradicionalni rabi apnene malte. V analizi javne razprave junija 2016 so se 
najasneje izrazila nasprotujoča si stališča zaradi tega konservatorska posega, v 
katerem smo prepoznali tri sklope neskladij. Prva zadeva najznačilnejše neskladje 
med strokovnim, torej avtoriziranim dediščinskim diskurzom, ki je z odstranitvijo 
Neža Čebron Lipovec 
74 |     Traditiones
poznejših plasti sledil cilju »izboljšanja avtentičnosti« in rekonstrukciji karseda 
enotne podobe beneškogotske fasade z odstranitvijo poznejših plasti, ter podre-
jenega diskurza večje skupine prebivalcev, ki se z odstranitvijo rdeče fasade 
niso strinjali, v proces odločanja pa niso bili vključeni. V temelju podrejenega 
dediščinskega diskurza, katerega nosilci so pretežno povojni, slovensko govoreči 
priseljenci oziroma njihovi potomci, je »solastalgija«, torej tesnoba ob izgubi 
ljubljenega prostora, ki jo spremlja krhanje občutka navezanosti na kraj in 
ontološke varnosti. Podoben narativ, a z obrnjenim pogledom, značilen za drugo 
skupino prebivalcev, je stališče tistih, ki so stavbo videli še pred barvanjem 
v rdečo; za člane italijanske skupnosti je »beneška« podoba stavbe prav tako 
referenca za njihovo navezanost na kraj, rdeča barva pa je razumljena kot njeno 
zanikanje. Pomembna sta uvida, da vendarle podrejena diskurza dveh etničnih 
skupin nista dihotomna, obenem pa se jasno izrisuje skladnost med strokovnim 
diskurzom in zagovorniki rožnate barve. Tretje neskladje je odnos nasprotnih 
podrejenih diskurzov do vloge turizma: turizem postane razlog tako za rdeči 
(prepoznavnost) kot za rožnati odtenek (poustvaritev historičnega ambienta 
beneške gotike), torej skladnost v neskladju. Analizo sklene ugotovitev, da so 
– upoštevaje sodobne dediščinske teorije – neskladja del dediščinske vrednosti 
objekta. Za ozaveščanje neskladij in njihovo dejavno obravnavo pri odločanju 
o konservatorskih posegih pa je nujno čim zgodnejše in širše sodelovanje 
pomembnih udeležencev, predvsem skupin lokalne skupnosti; tako je obravnava 
neskladij prostor »za dialog in vzajemno prepoznavanje« (Kisić, 2016).