ABSTRACT
Introduction Cuenca is Ecuador’s third city and one of the country’s main tourist destinations. Situated at 2,500 metres above sea level in the highlands of the southern province of Azuay, it has a mild climate and beautiful surroundings with green hills and valley pastures. The administrative canton Cuenca, made up of the city and its rural parroquias, has over 400,000 inhabitants of whom about 280,000 live in the city itself (INEC 2003). Thanks to its wellpreserved historical inner city, Cuenca was placed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 1999. Although the city is usually presented as a town with a colonial atmosphere, the buildings now protected by special laws under the UNESCO mandate predominantly date back to the nineteenth century. Twostorey buildings with tiled roofs and decorated facades represent the Cuencan version of French neoclassicism. Only a handful of buildings actually date back to the colonial era before 1830 (Jamieson 2000: 46). Since
the UNESCO recognition of the monumental value of the city centre in 1999, the mayor of Cuenca uses the designation fervently to promote his city and to attract more visitors and (inter)national events. Under the pretext of the UNESCO title ‘Patrimonio Cultural de la Humanidad’, he initiated renovation and restructuring projects of important inner-city areas.
