According to the a legal document published today in the Official Gazette, the new legislation on the inventorying, classification, protection and dissemination of cultural movable heritage assets and building heritage will enter into force in the Azores next month.

Approved by the Legislative Assembly in December, the new legislation takes into account "the need for classified assets to enhance and maintain their functional utility" in order to tackle a "static classification" that removes assets from collective use, said the Regional Secretary for Education and Culture.

However, Avelino Meneses stressed that in order to achieve this goal, "heritage assets should attract people and never pushed them away. The procedures for the conservation and maintenance of buildings will have to be compatible with the expectations and the requirements of our daily lives."

The Regional Secretary for Education and Culture also defended that the choice between the main procedures to safeguard heritage "initially lies in raising the awareness of citizens" and "reinforcing monitoring actions," which should be "provided with the human and material resources." According to him, "a coercive intervention should be carried out only when strictly necessary and after the implementation of awareness raising and monitoring actions."

The statute approved by the Legislative Assembly sought to adequate the regional legislation to the letters, recommendations and international conventions defined by ICOMOS and adopted by UNESCO.

According to the preamble of the recently published document that amends regional legislation approved in 2004, the safeguarding and rehabilitation of building heritage "comprise the conservation and transmission of the values embodied in each building to future generations."

Therefore, "any intervention in this heritage may be affecting the building's architectural features in terms of volume, space, function, structure, construction or aesthetics.”

"These values, either individually or together, tailor the unique features of a building, being inseparable from its authenticity; however, a preservation action with the best of intention can easily destroy them," says the document.

"Under the terms of the legal document, the protection and enhancement of building heritage give rise to increased responsibility, not only to the technicians and entities responsible for assessing intervention projects in buildings, but also to designers, who are in charge of further developing these projects."

The new legislation is primarily focused on the classification, inventorying and registration of cultural assets as well as on the preservation, defence and recovery of classified heritage. The interventions in building heritage, the offence scheme and the incentives to conservation and rehabilitation are other goals under this legal document.