186 LOCAL IDENTITIES GLOBAL CHALLENGES Local Heritages of Cosmopolitan Signiicance: How the Study of World Heritage Situates the ‘Ownership’ of Architecture CHRISTOPHER KOZIOL University of Colorado, Denver The discussion of globalization often heard among architects revolves around a desire for new markets and receptive clients. The wish, or fantasy, is that “new lands,” especially those prospering from natural resource exploitation (e.g., the Persian Gulf) or rapid industrialization (e.g., China and Southeast Asia) will welcome the creative spirit and technical prowess of the global practitioner. While “back home” govern- ment is often expected to protect properly licensed practitioners, abroad the task is changed to liberal- ize trade (in professional architectural practice) so as not to be encumbered by foreign laws. In schools of architecture, students covet studio projects set in places like Shanghai and Jeddah (especially those with travel to these exotic lands). While breathless enthusiasm frequently fuels peri- ods of expansion, it also pushes aside that which does not adhere to the anticipated future. In this respect it becomes convenient to steer clear of local controversies. However, when the local becomes recognized as important and signiicant by others beyond its borders, there arises a need to exam- ine the current track of global architectural prac- tice; to ask whether these practitioners are more than technically prepared, but also ethically aware. There are international agreements to understand; transnational migrations to fathom; and moreover a change in architecture from the parochially na- tionalist to the cosmopolitan. And this is not about style. It is about heritage, a vital and contentious topic in the contemporary world. One glib interpretation of globalization has it that national states and multi-national corporations are dancing their way through to some new economic order. In this view architects prefer state protection when it favors their interests and global capital- ism when it opens up new markets. However, it is a vision absent of the accumulated experiences of places and their inhabitants, and one bereft of any moral compass. Social theorist, Ulrich Beck has recently argued for a view more nuanced with de- tail and human awareness. He turns to a word irst explored in eighteenth century philosophers and inds a new use for it. “Cosmopolitanization means internal globalization, globalization from within the national societies. This transforms everyday con- sciousness and identities signiicantly. Issues of global concern are becoming part of the everyday local experiences and the ‘moral life-worlds’ of the people.” 1 With this perspective, policy controver- sies and the battle for open markets take on dif- ferent meanings. Architectural heritage becomes more than regulatory burden or design restriction. Architects have long protected their professional privileges by enlisting the regulatory powers of the State. 2 While there has sometimes been resistance from external forces, and even internal dissention, the beneits of trade restriction has become a staple, institutionalized as licensure, in the United States of America and in many other countries. The sov- ereignty of the modern-nation state has served the architect as businessperson well. Even inter-national agreements regarding practice have been orderly if