Cultural heritage is the wealth of knowledge created and passed down to us by our ancestors. It has been formed over centuries. Nature heritage is the treasury of natural wisdom, which has developed effective forms of living across epochs of Earth development. Creators (inventors and scientists as well as artists and thinkers) have always known how to identify and use this treasury of knowledge. Their work is frequently marked by precise observation and deep ways of seeing.
Heritage is a witness to those times when man still knew how to (and could) feel a bond with nature, which meant that he was also able to listen to it.
In today’s post-industrial society, we regard exile from nature as freedom. Nature no longer supplies us with life; instead, we look at it as a kind of mechanism. In contrast to traditional societies, society today is teared out from the essential oneness of the world.
Every place is marked by the natural and cultural heritage typical of it. This encompasses material and non-material heritage and stretches from mythological tradition to useful objects and typical architecture.
The heritage of Europe and of Slovenia is rich with traditional models of living (the planning of Etruscan cities, for example). These models were organised in an environmentally sustainable way and with an awareness of the burden that the environment can take if life is to be sustained.
In their planning, ancient cultures took account of the fact that physical space had a vital energy, a spirituality, thereby ensuring the flow of vital energy and the health of the landscape. This method of planning settlements was already in use in Europe in the Middle Ages. By examining the course taken by streets, and the siting of buildings and of churches as places of worship within the organism of the landscape, geomantic research into old city centres continually reveals to us the sophisticated knowledge that planners had regarding the subtle dimensions of landscape.