Patricia Green | ‘Disneyfication’ of Devon House compromises heritage

The year 2023 marks 40th anniversary of Jamaica signing UNESCO 1972 ‘Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage’ popularly called the ‘World Heritage Convention’. There are 194 nations that are signatories as at 2020. Attached to the Convention are a set of regularly updated ‘Operational Guidelines’ with precise criteria for its implementation.

UNESCO declared that the 1972 Convention “links together in a single document the concepts of nature conservation and the preservation of cultural properties”. It recognises the way in which people interact with nature, and “the fundamental need to preserve the balance between the two”. On June 14, 1983 Jamaica signed this Convention, then came the 1985 Act for the Jamaica National Heritage Trust (JNHT). Jamaica has pledged internationally to conserve its 2015 World Heritage site Blue and John Crow Mountains, also to protect all other national heritage, including Devon House.

This convention terms ‘cultural heritage’ as tangible and immovable heritage in three categories: monuments, groups of buildings, sites. Devon House would be categorised as cultural heritage ‘group of buildings’. Jamaica has a duty to ensure the identification, protection, conservation, presentation and transmission to future generations of its cultural and natural heritage, and set up staff and services at these sites, to undertake scientific and technical conservation research. Was there an on-going archaeological watch at Devon House during that recent development activity? What artefacts were found? Did anyone locate the historic well traditionally sited in the backyard between all mansion houses and their kitchens? Will these artefacts including its well be interpreted and put on public display accessible to all Devon House visitors including Jamaicans?

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE

Understand better the historic significance within the international context surrounding the 1967 declaration of Devon House as a Jamaica national monument. The First International Congress of Architects and Technicians of Historic Monuments was held in Athens, Greece in 1931. This generated the ‘Athens Charter for the Restoration of Historic Monuments’, focusing on ancient buildings. When the UNESCO was birthed in 1945, it adopted this charter.

Chronologically, Jamaica was ahead in restoration activities. Its colonial government established in the Ministry of Communications and Works, a unit that repaired a number of monuments, then enacted Law No.72 of 1958 enabling the Jamaica National Trust Commission to become a statutory body in 1959, which in 1985 became JNHT. In 1964, a second congress of architects and technicians occurred in Venice, Italy. They developed the ‘Venice International Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites’ that covered all types of heritage. Hence, when the Government of Jamaica purchased Devon House for the people of Jamaica in 1967 and commenced its restoration, this happened in accordance with the ‘Venice Charter’, which reads in part as amplified:

• Article 1: “The concept of a historic monument embraces not only the single architectural work, but also the urban or rural setting.” - Devon House mansion, plus its front and back buildings, and all associated landscape, including its backyard, were listed as a monument and restored in its urban setting at its Hope Road ‘Millionaire’s Corner’, and with its Lady Musgrave Road story.

• Article 6: “Wherever the traditional setting exists, it must be kept. No new construction, demolition or modification which would alter the relations of mass and colour must be allowed.” Devon House 1967 restoration replicated existing outbuildings with re-construction on existing foundations, collapsed structures that had enclosed the backyard complex of its mansion.

• Article 7: “A monument is inseparable from the history to which it bears witness and from the setting in which it occurs.” Devon House ca.1881 designed and built by African-Jamaican George Stiebel, whose mother was a housekeeper, has domestic buildings in high-styled architecture that still exists today with its backyard, mirroring the extravagance and elegance of his two-storey mansion. This was a radical architectural act of decolonisation by Stiebel to upgrade this social space no doubt in respect of his mother. This backyard comprised kitchen, pit latrines, servant quarters, laundry, stable, coach house, and kitchen gardens.

Why does the Devon House promotion exclude its outstanding and significant backyard with upscale domestic architecture integral to the value and authenticity of its overall heritage setting? What justifies only promoting Devon House as a grand mansion? Does the heritage of traditional backyard spaces of African-Jamaicans matter?

YARD

Anthropologist, Sidney W. Mintz, in Caribbean Transformations, observed that among poor Caribbean people, the yard is an extension of the house, just as the house is the living core of the yard. In my 2022 article published in NACLA Report on the Americas, ‘From Jamaica, a Decolonization Cry for Housing Justice and Architecture Conservation’, I identified the significance and development of the yard/’yaad’ during enslavement before 1834 and after, in both rural and urban settings.

The Central Housing Authority (CHA) established in the 1930s to provide low-income/affordable solutions in western Kingston and other urban centres, replicated the traditional Jamaican ‘yaad’. Devon House would have served as a model. The CHA built housing in Trench Town now famously dubbed ‘government yaad’ inspired by Bob Marley and the Wailers’ No Woman No Cry, which was released in 1974. The JNHT in 2018, declared ‘Trench Town Culture Yard’ a protected national heritage. Trench Town is a popular Airbnb destination in Jamaica. Why therefore, destroy this Jamaican cultural backyard space at Devon House?

The 1999 ‘International Cultural Tourism Charter Managing Tourism at Places of Heritage Significance’ states in part, and emphasised:

• 1.1: “...The natural and cultural heritage is a material and spiritual resource, providing a narrative of historical development...” -Put back Devon House backyard and garden spaces.

• 2.4: “The retention of the authenticity of heritage places and collections is important. It is an essential element of their cultural significance.” Put back Devon House backyard and garden spaces.

• 6.2: “Places and collections of heritage significance should be promoted and managed in ways which protect their authenticity and enhance the visitor experience” Put back Devon House backyard and garden spaces.

• 6.3: “Tourism promotion programmes should provide a wider distribution of benefits and relieve the pressures on more popular places.” -Stop overloading with intense high-traffic activities the Devon House backyard to prevent rapid deterioration of the overall complex of buildings including the mansion that is currently under jeopardy.

If the current ‘disneyfication’ of Devon House backyard is kept, should Devon House be removed from historic listing? Who will take responsibility to protect the authenticity and integrity of this outstanding Jamaican Creole Architecture group of buildings and setting? Devon House is Jamaica’s palace. In keeping with Jamaican cultural spaces, let us consider renaming the ‘courtyard’ as ‘Devon House back yaad’.

- Patricia Green, PhD, is an UNESCO international expert consultant on cultural heritage and member of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) in its International Scientific Committee on Cultural Landscapes and a co-convener of its Historic Urban Landscape working group. Send feedback to patgreen2008@gmail.com.