Metamorphic heritage values: Revisiting architectural heritage assessment in clustered and residual contexts

Values-based approaches are central to architectural heritage conservation, yet their institutionalisation has often transformed analytical value typologies into normative-operational templates. This stabilisation risks obscuring the dynamic, negotiated, and context-dependent nature of heritage significance, particularly in settings shaped by rupture, displacement, and coexistence. Such limitations are especially evident in residual and clustered heritage contexts, where architectural heritage persists amid discontinuity, layered memories, and competing narratives. This study addresses the need for a more flexible conceptualisation of value attribution capable of accounting for transformation, plurality, and perspective-dependence.

The research adopts a qualitative, conceptual methodology combining an interdisciplinary narrative literature review with an attribute-based analysis of heritage value typologies. A genealogical mapping of value frameworks across architecture, archaeology, sociology, and economics was conducted, followed by the development of a Value-Attribute (V>A) matrix to identify shared and overlapping conceptual properties. These analytical steps were situated within a critical discourse on residual and clustered heritage contexts. Building on this foundation, the study develops a metamorphic interpretive framework to analyse how heritage values evolve, overlap, and diverge over time and across stakeholders.

The analysis demonstrates that many established value typologies rely on porous and overlapping definitions, which become problematic when applied as fixed assessment categories in complex socio-political contexts. The study identifies three recurrent modes of value transformation: accretive values, where meanings accumulate over time; palimpsestic values, where earlier interpretations are partially overwritten yet remain traceable; and refracted values, where meanings diverge across cultural, political, or emotional perspectives. These modes reveal how architectural heritage significance is continuously reconfigured rather than replaced, particularly in contexts marked by displacement, forced coexistence, or contested memory.

The paper proposes metamorphic heritage values as a heuristic and reflective lens rather than a new classificatory system. By shifting attention from enumerating values to tracing their transformation, the framework supports a more adaptive, pluralistic, and context-sensitive approach to heritage assessment. This perspective enhances the capacity of values-based methodologies to engage with residual and clustered heritage and contributes to broader debates on the epistemology of heritage valuation and conservation practice.