Mainz was a perfect place to kick off the HERITAGE-PRO project: Our partners joined the meeting from Bad Mergentheim (Germany), Brussels (Belgium), Högenas (Sweden), Vienna (Austria) – and Mainz.. Our host Entwicklungsagentur Rheinland Pfalz together with Generaldirektion Kulturelles Erbe Rheinland-Pfalz offered the team a marvellous meeting place at Erthaler Hof, an 18th century building in the city center.
Of course we prepared our first tasks – mainly the interdisciplinary training scheme for heritage managers – but our hosts had also organised a study trip to Roman heritage in Mainz: We visited the so called Isis & Mater Magna temple in the underground of Mainz. This is a perfect example of public-private cooperation in heritage preservation and director Dr. Hans Marg of the “Initiative Roman Mainz” shared his experiences of the preservation process with us.
The other day we had an expert talk with architect Frank Sprenger, head of Centre for Restoration and Preservation of Historical Monuments of the Chamber of Crafts, Koblenz. What he told us was most interesting for the development of our training scheme: crafts persons in Germany refrain at the moment from any kind of training as they have so many jobs in the market that further training is not relevant. What does it mean? “We will have a huge knowledge gap sooner or later concerning crafts for heritage preservation, because craftspersons need updates of their heritage preservation knowledge continuously”, said Mr Sprenger. This was valuable input for our training scheme to be developed…
