Beatrice Vaienti

Moreover, the linear and non-conflictual nature of this thematic approach risks to oversimplify the complexity of a place and its history, resulting in a narrow perspective that may exclude important aspects of its heritage. This topic has inspired my fieldwork, which tried to delve into the thematic approach employed for UNESCO candidatures and its effects on heritage and memory, along with the contrast between dominant and hidden narratives.

Following a brainstorming session to identify the elements we wished to explore and to understand each other’s background, we opted to start our journey in La Chaux-de-Fond.

As a group, given our common interests, we decided to focus on the processes of heritage patrimonialization and the deconstruction of dominant narratives.

On the one hand, we sought to identify any signs of these processes and elements that could attest the relationship between the organized urban structure and the watchmaking industry.

On the other, we aimed to uncover any historical aspects of these towns that may have been concealed by the process of brandization: dissonant elements or peculiar objects without evident explanations. In other words, we were interested in identifying any counter-narratives that may emerge beyond the non-conflictual historical narrative of the place.

Here, we employed the municipality's tourist guide as an initial framework for our tour. The latter part of our day was instead reserved for our visit to Le Locle. While the tourist guide provided us with a general itinerary, we intentionally avoided a rigid schedule.

We aimed to meander through the streets, adopting a sort of flâneur 's approach and allowing ourselves the freedom to deviate from our planned route.

As for the methodology for recording my observations in the notebook, I decided to use a combination of polaroids , drawings , and text .

The instant photo was meant to capture a specific element, whose representation was objective but still dictated by my gaze.

The drawing surrounding the picture, and completing it outside its bounds, was plausible, but not necessarily accurate.

It was meant to record an imagined reality, often created while being in another location. The text represented an even successive layer of information, added mainly after the seminar to record my reflections and additional information and to note any keywords suggested by the recorded element.

The notebook that was produced through this seminar assumed in the end a form very similar to that of a travelogue. The multilayered nature of it appeared to be interesting as a methodology to reflect and re-elaborate the material collected, other than just record it.

Moreover, no matter how objective the medium used may have been, our personal gaze and expectations seemed to be the primary elements captured by this approach, which made in my opinion this methodology even more interesting.

Following this line, the initial thematic focus of the fieldwork was on denied heritage. In the UNESCO decision report we can read that “L'étude typologique et environnementale des constructions d'après 1930 fait ressortir quelques ruptures importantes (immeubles hauts)” . While the nomination file speaks of “accidents morphologiques” . In particular, the Centre Métropole and the Espacité were addressed during the inscription process as two elements of rupture, as “ craintes d’inauthenticité” .

It was then interesting to learn that the Espacité was meant to celebrate the heritage of Le Corbusier and was developed after a competition for ideas launched by the municipality.

The rejection of the UNESCO proposition "L’oeuvre architecturale et urbaine de Le Corbusier" in the same year, and its subsequent acceptance in 2016 with the

exclusion of the buildings in the Jura, raises the question of how much this influenced the way in which this part of heritage was displayed in the city.

During the fieldwork, a second focus was to capture elements that caught my curiosity, approaching my observations with a more open perspective.

This, for me proved to be an interesting way of discovering less displayed stories.

For instance, after some online research, the red telephone box in Le Locle was found to be a sign of the twinning of the city with the English city of Sidmouth.

The fountain of la Chaux-de-Fonds was created to commemorate the moment when water was first brought to the town, while the year “1848” carved in Le Locle was meant to remember the Neuchâtel revolution.