PEOPLE
Blazing a New Trail for Serial Inscription-Format Conservation and Management with the Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution: Training Personnel to Pass on Memory and Understanding as a Major Challenge in the Future
Heritage Architect and International Consultant
Duncan Marshall is a heritage architect and international consultant with a special involvement in World Heritage. He was the coordinating author for the UNESCO resource manual on World Heritage nominations, and has for many years been the ICOMOS representative and lead resource person at an annual international World Heritage training program run by UNITAR in Hiroshima. He has also assisted with a range of other World Heritage training activities. Duncan has advised about World Heritage nominations in a range of countries including Australia, India, Japan, Laos and Myanmar. Within Australia, Duncan was formerly the Chair of the ACT Heritage Council and in 2015 was awarded the inaugural Bathurst Macquarie Heritage Medal for his national contribution.
Duncan Marshall, a specialist in the conservation of Australia’s historic heritage as well as one of the overseas experts who devoted his services to getting Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, visited Japan in March 2017. The principal reason for this visit was to provide advice, together with Dr. Michael Pearson (another overseas expert) on future conservation and management in connection with this heritage based on the Cabinet Secretariat’s Strategic Framework for Conservation and Management. We took this opportunity to interview Mr. Marshall once more about the value of the Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution and the challenges that lie ahead for their conservation and management. This interview was conducted through an interpreter on March 28, 2017, in Tokyo in the company of Ms. Koko Kato, the managing director of the National Congress of Industrial Heritage.
――To begin, how did you come to be involved with Meiji Japan’s Industrial Revolution?
Mr. Marshall: Initially, I was asked by my old friend and colleague Dr. Michael Pearson to help out with the project. My role was to provide advice from a professional standpoint on the formulation of a Conservation Management Plan (CMP). Actually, this was several years before submitting a nomination to UNESCO.
In addition to that, I had been involved in World Heritage conservation and management training at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) office in Hiroshima, and had been to Japan many times. So I think my familiarity with Japan was another big reason.
――When exactly did you receive the invitation from Dr. Pearson?
Mr. Marshall: I think Michael had already been involved in the project for about nine years, we’ve been friends for many years, in part because his house is close to mine, so I’d been hearing him talk about it often from the beginning. So I knew the project quite well even before I became directly involved.
――What were your initial impressions when you heard him talk about the project for the first time?
Mr. Marshall: I was quite interested. Because in Japan, before that, although applications for inscription as World Heritage had often been submitted for old temples and other cultural heritage, the Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution were a completely different type of heritage. Everyone knows that Japan is a modern industrial state, but this story, which focuses on the period of transition when Japan began taking its first steps toward modernization and industrialization is not well known to the rest of the world. So I thought that point was very interesting, in particular.
――Is this type of modern or industrial heritage unusual, globally?
Mr. Marshall: I’m not an expert on industrial heritage myself, but although I’ve heard from experts in Japan and overseas that a lot of industrial heritage survives worldwide, I rate the Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution as being very important because of the surviving evidence. For example, several of the heritage clusters retain the technologies that were actually used in the Meiji period. These could be said to be important even in worldwide perspective.
Another notable feature of this heritage is the fact that there is a large number of component properties and spread over a wide area. The attempt to tell the sweeping story of modern Japan’s industrialization in as many as twenty-three component properties is quite unique.
――Would you say that the World Heritage inscription of this industrial heritage by a serial nomination format is in itself a testament to its high value in world history?
Mr. Marshall: Yes.
Senior Researcher, Industrial Heritage Information Centre
Honorary Advisor, Nippon Mining Co., Ltd.
The Ambassador of Supporting Kamaishi Hometown
Former Director of Nagasaki City World Heritage Office
Former General Manager, Nagasaki Shipyard and Machinery Works, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.
Chairman, Fujisankei Group
Executive Managing Advisor, Fuji Television Network, Inc.
Executive Managing Advisor, Fuji Media Holdings, Inc.
Advisor, Federation of Japan Port and Airport Construction Association
(Ex. Chairman of Specialists Center of Port and Airport Engineering)
Mayor of Nagasaki City
Former Director of the Sano Tsunetami Memorial Museum (currently known as Sano Tsunetami and the Mietsu Naval Dock History Museum)
Director of NPO Association for Thinking about Satoyama
Director of National Congress of the Industrial Heritage
Honorary Chief Priest Toshinari Ueda
Former Mayor of Omuta City
Archaeologist and Heritage Conservation Specialist
A fellow of the Japan Federation of Engineering Societies
Team Member of the Industrial Project Team Office for the Promotion of World Heritage Listing under Cabinet Secretariat
Governor of Kagoshima Prefecture
Mayor of Hagi City
Mayor of Uki City, Kumamoto Prefecture
The Former Employee of Nippon Steel Corporation
An Associate Professor of the Faculty of Science and Engineering in Iwate University
Chairman of the Tourist Guide Association of Misumi West Port
President of Kuraya Narusawa Co., Ltd.
Chairman of Izunokuni City Tourism Association
Director and General Manager of Gunkanjima Concierge
Producer of the Gunkanjima Digital Museum
Owner at Tōge Chaya
Chairman: Mr. Hidenori Date
President: Mr. Masahiro Date
Proprietor, Houraikan Inn
Representative Director of Egawa Bunko non-profit incorporated foundation
The 42nd head of the Egawa Family
Democratic Party for the People (DPP) Representative for Nagasaki Prefecture
President of the NPO, Way to World Heritage Gunkanjima
Representative Director
MI Consulting Group
President of Watanabe Production Group and Honorary Chair of Watanabe Productions Co., Ltd.
Member of the House of Councillors
Governor
Kagoshima Prefecture
World Heritage Consultant
Director and Dean, The Kyushu-Asia Institute of Leadership
Representative Director, SUMIDA, Inc.
Journalist, founder of the Shimomura Mitsuko Ikikata Juku School
Representative, Rally Nippon
Chairman, Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution World Heritage Route Promotion Council Director, National Congress of Industrial Heritage
Representative Director, General Incorporated Foundation National Congress of Industrial Heritage (Advisor, Public Interest Incorporated Foundation Capital Markets Research Institute）
Mayor of Nagasaki City
Policy Director at Heritage Montreal
World Heritage Consultant
Executive Director of Kogakuin University
Heritage Architect and International Consultant
Head of Data Acquisition at The Glasgow School of Art’s School of Simulation and Visualisation
Head of Industrial Heritage, Historic Environment Scotland, Edinburgh
Scottish Ten Project Manager, Historic Environment Scotland, Edinburgh
Mayor of Izunokuni City, Shizuoka Prefecture
Pro-Provost and Chairman of Council of the Royal College of Art. Heritage advisor of Canal & River Trust for England and Wales.
Dean of Tokyo Rissho Junior College
Professor emeritus of Keio University
Mayor of Kitakyushu City
At the 39th session of the World Heritage Committee convened in Bonn, Germany, from June 28 to July 8, 2015, the decision was approved to inscribe the Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution on the World Heritage list.
At a celebratory party held to mark the occasion, some of the primary promoters of the project spoke of their joy in achieving their goal and of the trials and tribulations to getting there.
Director and Managing Executive Officer, Hanshin Expressway Company Limited
Member, Board of Directors, National Congress of Industrial Heritage
Vice-Governor of Shizuoka Prefecture
Mayor of Hagi City
Chairman, Tokyo Metro Co., Ltd.
Mayor of Omuta City
Deputy Director-General, Lifelong Learning Policy Bureau, MEXT
Former Counsellor, Cabinet Secretariat
Mayor of Kamaishi City
Member, Board of Directors, National Congress of Industrial Heritage Counselor, Shimadzu Limited
Chairman of the Consortium for the World Heritage Inscription of Modern Industrial Heritage (Kyushu-Yamaguchi) and governor of Kagoshima Prefecture (as of 2015)