Photo story: New life for avant-garde buildings from Russia and Ukraine

The EU Neighbourhood Info Centre has released a photo story highlighting the achievements of an EU-funded project in preserving valuable early twentieth century urban heritage in the cities of Moscow and Kyiv.
See webpage
  

‘A new lease of life for avant-garde buildings from Russia and Ukraine’ follows the work of the Save Urban Heritage project funded under the CIUDAD programme.

The 1.30-minute video spotlights the activities of the project, which helps Moscow and Kyiv preserve their architectural heritage, by giving a new lease of life to neglected avant-garde buildings.

The photo story is based on a feature article published by the Info Centre last year.

It was put together using photos taken for the Info Centre, illustrating the activities of the project, with music and background information. The photos are also available in a special Photo gallery on the EU Neighbourhood Info Centre website. 

The video is the latest in a series of resources illustrating EU support for culture in the EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood, released as culture ministers meet in Tbilisi for the first Eastern Partnership Ministerial Conference on Culture today. Other material includes a press pack and an interview with the team leader of the Eastern Partnership Culture programme. (EU Neighbourhood Info)

Heritage at risk: updated bibliography

ICOMOS' documentation centre has just updated its bibliography on heritage at risk.
Browse the references extracted from our collections and organized thematically.






Any document can be consulted in our reading room or copied/scanned for the readers abroad. See our services webpage.


Download bibliography (PDF, 2.7 MB)

Earth, Wind, Water, Fire - Environmental challenges to Urban World Heritage

The City of Regensburg hosted the OWHC Northwest-European Regional Conference "Earth, Wind, Water, Fire - Environmental challenges to Urban World Heritage" (16-18 September 2008).



The conference proceedings have now been published by the City of Regensburg. This scientific publication summarizes the conference results, highlights experiences with environmental challenges and points out different protection strategies for historic urban areas by depicting the numerous conference presentations on 'Earth', 'Wind', 'Water' and 'Fire' which covered a wide spectrum of natural risks to urban World Heritage sites.

Download the publication in pdf

Source: City of Regensburg

Moscow Heritage at Crisis Point - updated edition available online

Moscow Heritage at Crisis Point - Updated, expanded edition



The report is a follow up to the 2007 report, which brought the crisis that Moscow’s heritage is undergoing into the centre of national and international attention. Despite the successes of the report, the destruction continues. The scale of the threat is such that a new edition of the report was considered necessary.

The new report details the changes of the last two years – what new losses the city has suffered, which buildings are under continuing or new threat, why this is happening, and also outlines the path for a more sustainable future for the city.

This new report from SAVE Europe’s Heritage and the Moscow Architectural Preservation Society (MAPS), with support from Do.Co.Mo.Mo International, condemns the losses while illustrating the astonishing range of historic building in Moscow, from medieval churches to elegant post-war modernism – all threatened by the furious pace of redevelopment of the city by a coterie of property developers during the tenure of Mayor Yury Luzhkov.

Download the publication

Call for 2010 World Monuments Watch Nominations

2010 World Monuments Watch nominations are now being accepted. Nominations for Modern sites are encouraged.

Deadline for nominations is March 15, 2009.


Endangered Sites calls international attention to cultural heritage sites around the world that are threatened by neglect, deterioration, demolition, and natural and man-made disasters. From archaeological sites to iconic architecture, cultural landscapes to historic city centers, the Watch identifies places of significance in need of timely attention and action. In recent years, World Monuments Fund (WMF) has increasingly noted that in addition to facing the same physical threats as ancient structures, modern architecture often suffers from a lack of appreciation of its historical significance. For this reason, WMF encourages nominations of Modern sites to the 2010 World Monuments Watch.

Every two years, WMF accepts new nominations to the Watch, from which 100 are selected for listing. The Watch listing provides an opportunity for sites and their nominators to raise public awareness, foster local participation, advance innovation and collaboration, and demonstrate effective solutions. The Watch nomination process also serves as a vehicle for requesting World Monuments Fund assistance for select projects. More than 500 sites from over 110 countries have benefited from the seven cycles of the Watch; nearly half of these have received WMF grants, totaling $50 million.
Additional information about the 2010 World Monuments Watch and downloadable PDFs of the Guidelines and Nomination Forms are available at http://www.wmf.org/watch.html.

Adobe Reader version 9.0 is required for the PDFs and may be downloaded for free at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

Questions or concerns about the nomination or electronic submission process should be directed to watch@wmf.org.

Please forward this email to colleagues and contacts who might be interested in submitting a nomination. Thank you for your interest in the Watch!

World Monuments Fund
95 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Tel: 646-424-9594, Ext. 243
Fax: 646-424-9593

Source: Message from the World Monuments Watch Program

ICCROM - New PDF document online

Risk preparedness: A management manual for World Cultural Heritage. By Herb Stovel. Rome: ICCROM, 1998.

This volume addresses the issue of risk preparedness in both general and specific terms. After an introduction to the overall context and principles, the author then discusses property-specific strategies for various major risks, such as fire, earthquakes, flooding, armed conflict and other hazards. The final section covers putting risk-preparedness into practice. A list of sources and various key documents are also provided.

Download the book

New ICOMOS publication: Heritage at Risk 2006-2007: ICOMOS World Report on Monuments and Sites in Danger

Heritage at Risk 2006-2007: ICOMOS World Report on Monuments and Sites in Danger
The new World Report 2006/2007 on Monuments and Sites in Danger provides a broad spectrum of threats in the different regions of the world. Apart from 40 National Reports there are also current reports on cross-national topics, such as endangered rock paintings in North Africa and Australia, threats to vernacular architecture or to our archaeological heritage. Many of the threats discussed in the previous Heritage at Risk reports still exist, for instance dam projects in Turkey or threats to cultural heritage caused by military conflicts in Iraq and the Near East. Often conservation concerns are being sacrificed for purely commercial interests. This is being demonstrated for example by skyscraper projects in St Petersburg, Prague, Istanbul or Vienna exceeding all traditional dimensions or by the disfigurement of historic town quarters and cultural landscapes in countries such as Hungary, Romania or Moldova.

For the first time, the World Report 2006/2007 also contains a number of studies dealing with the effects of the worldwide climate change on our cultural heritage. Case studies demonstrate how different world regions, for instance the Canadian coastline, the Antarctic and Southern Europe, are already affected by climate change. Being aware of this interaction between natural and cultural heritage, ICOMOS has increased its commitment in Brazil by recently declaring the tropical rainforest of Amazonia a "monument of nature".

Download the document