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.
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‘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)

Art Nouveau publications

ICOMOS Documentation Centre recently acquired two interesting publications by the "Réseau Art Nouveau Network":

- Art Nouveau in Europe today – A general appraisal

This work, illustrated with previously unseen photographs, presents a critical analysis of the situation regarding the art Nouveau heritage in the partner cities within the Network, together with a series of recommendations aimed at improving the policies designed to protect and promote this heritage throughout Europe.

Published in English and French.

And:

- Art Nouveau in Progress, exhibition’s catalogue












This publication accompanies the travelling exhibition "Art Nouveau in Progress". It presents case studies from different cities within the Network, covering three chosen themes of "Visions", "Disappearance" and "Regeneration".

Published in two bilingual editions: English - French, French - Dutch.

Available at:
Exhibitions International, Kol. Begaultlaan 17, 3012 Leuven, T: 016.296900, F: 016.296129, orders@exhibitionsinternational.be

More info: Réseau Art Nouveau Network

New ICOMOS France electronic publication

Colloque du Havre: Villes symboles du XXe siècle


Brasilia, Chandigarh, Le Havre, Tel Aviv: four different interpretations of 20th century's architectural and urban modernity. Three of those four cities are inscribed on the UNESCO world heritage list, Chandigarh is applying to be inscribed.

Their outstanding modern architectural heritage is a reference to the whole world. To balance the protection and the valorization of the most prestigious buildings with nowadays urban life remains a permanent question.

Le Havre city presents the publication of the international symposium, which took place on September 13th-14th 2008, to examine the main steps of those important heritage sites and to compare the solutions chosen to bring together heritage enhancement and present's necessities. This symposium gathered numerous specialists regarding architectural and urban history, urban policies coordinators, and actors, elected and professionals, of today's urban projects.
(Source: ICOMOS France website)

Download proceedings at the bottom of the page (PDF, 4 MB)

Docomomo E-Proceedings II - Mirror of Modernity. The Post-War Revolution in Urban Conservation - Available online

Docomomo E-Proceedings II - Mirror of Modernity. The Post-War Revolution in Urban Conservation. Dec 09.


Download the proceedings

Modern heritage properties (19th and 20th Centuries) on the World Heritage List

The ICOMOS Documentation Centre has produced a bibliography on the Modern heritage properties on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The document includes a description of the World heritage properties with a bibliography based on the documents available at the Documentation Centre.

Download the document

Conserving architecture: Planned conservation of XX Century Architectural Heritage

Conservare l'architettura: Conservazione programmata per il patrimonio architettonico del XX secolo. A cura di Andrea Canziani


The Planned Conservation is the ability to see the Cultural Heritage over time and to govern its transformations. Knowledge, prevention, control, operations planning, replace the idea of restoration as a defensive action aimed to prevent any changes with the idea of conservation as a co-evolution between humans and heritage.

The practice of preventive and planned conservation are presented as a strategic move to preserve the architectural heritage of the twentieth century. Modern heritage is particularly vulnerable to risks of accelerated deterioration due to material, formal and technological characteristics. Control and cure, indeed, are the most effective defense of its authenticity.

The essays in this volume present ideas, researches and international cases related to the conservation of buildings and sites of modernity. It outlines a framework that reveals different cultural contexts of protection and unpublished lines of continuity and consistency.
Reflections on the legal and regulatory frameworks, on social and cultural impacts, on sustainability and economic efficiency, on the role of knowledge, diagnostics and monitoring, highlight the potential related to the transition from restoration as an exceptional occurrence to conservation as knowledge and constant care.

The volume contains also the contributions presented in October 2009 at the International Conference “Planned Conservation of XXth Century Architectural Heritage” promoted by the Municipality of Como within the CARIPLO Foundation’s project "Spreading innovative methodologies for Planned Conservation of historic architectural heritage”.
The conference was conducted with the support of:
DOCOMOMO Italy - Italian Association for Documentation and Conservation of Buildings, Sites and Neigbourhoods of the Modern Movement -
UNESCO Chair on Preventive Conservation Maintenance and Monitoring of Monuments and Sites. POLITECNICO DI MILANO - Department of Building & Environment Science & Technology


Andrea Canziani, PhD architect, specialist in Restoration of Monuments, professor of Architectural Restoration at the Politecnico di Milano Faculty of Architecture and Society.
Concerned with issues of conservation of cultural heritage with specific attention to the twentieth century and the relationship between architecture, landscape and cultural and social development.
Is a member of DOCOMOMO International-International Committee for Documentation and Conservation of Buildings, Sites and Neigbourhoods of the Modern Movement-and Secretary General of DOCOMOMO Italy.
Website: http://www.plannedconservationcomo2009.com/

Patrimonio del Siglo 20 - Movimiento Moderno: Publicaciones online

Publicaciones disponibles:

- El patrimonio del movimiento moderno : pensamientos, reflexiones, aprendizajes. Editado por Stella Maris Casal [Download]

- El patrimonio arquitectónico rehabilitado del siglo 20 en Buenos Aires: el patrimonio moderno. Documentos de Trabajo N° 229, Universidad de Belgrano. (Texts in Spanish and English)
[http://www.ub.edu.ar/investigaciones/dt_nuevos/229_casal.pdf](Enlace disponible proximamente)

Australia ICOMOS: (Un)Loved Modern Conference papers available online

Papers and presentation slides for most of the presentations at the recent (Un)Loved Modern Conference held in Sydney (7-10 July 2009) are now available online from the Australia ICOMOS conference website www.aicomos.com.

The papers are arranged according to the conference themes. Keynote presentations are also available.

Selected papers will also be published in forthcoming issues of Historic Environment, following an editorial and peer review process.

Download the papers

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

DOCOMOMO E-proceedings

SOUTH CITY - Modernist Urbanism in the Southern Hemisphere: Past, Present, Future
Symposium, January 22—23, 2009
Edinburgh College of Art – University of Edinburgh

Download the proceedings of the Symposium

Held in Edinburgh in late January 2009, the “South City” Symposium sought to provoke a stimulating interaction between the heritage and future of modernist urbanism in the southern hemisphere. Organized jointly by Docomomo International Committee on Urbanism Landscape, the Scottish Centre for Conservation Studies, Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) and the University of Edinburgh, it brought together a range of experts on urbanism in South America, Africa and Southern Asia, together with a range of original films, to pose the question of what contribution the considerable legacy of modernist planning and architecture, dating mainly from the postwar years, can make to the challenges of the vastly expanded urban growth of the C21.

The event opened on the evening of Thursday 22 January with a keynote address at Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) by Frederico de Holanda (Universidade de Brasília, Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo), one of the foremost experts on the history and development of the Brazilian capital, focusing on how its revolutionary utopian design concept, with all its myths and its vernacular life, has fared in the decades since its initial launch.

Prof. Holanda also contributed a research paper to the all-day session at University of Edinburgh Architecture on Friday 23 January, along with Edinburgh-based international experts on the modernist city in South America, Africa and Asia: the 23 January session was also, appropriately, the venue for the launch of a new Docomomo International Southern Hemisphere liaison group, chaired by Ola Uduku of ECA, aimed at helping expand Docomomo’s activities beyond its current predominantly Northern Hemisphere focus.