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WMF has extensive publications and resources for both specific projects and general heritage preservation issues. Choose content types and search criteria below.
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Featured Media, Articles and Publications
2012 Watch Award
Date: November 2012Type: Video
Keywords: Hadrian Award, Watch Award, World Monuments Watch
Inaugurated in 2011, the Watch Award is presented annually to recognize individual advocacy, activism, and extraordinary achievement on behalf of heritage preservation. World Monuments Fund proudly honors The Duke of Devonshire KCVO, CBE, DL with the 2012 Watch Award.
2012 Hadrian Award
Date: November 2012Type: Video
Keywords: Hadrian Award
Each year, World Monuments Fund presents the Hadrian Award to an international leader who has advanced the understanding, appreciation, and preservation of the world's art and architecture. WMF is proud to honor Kenneth Chenault, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of American Express, with the 2012 Hadrian Award.
Preserving Haiti’s Gingerbread Houses: 2010 Earthquake Mission Report (pdf)
Date: 2010Type: WMF Publication
Keywords: Port-au-Prince
Related Projects: GINGERBREAD NEIGHBORHOOD
Country: Haiti
Abstract:
In April 2010, three months after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, a World Monuments Fund team traveled to Port-au-Prince to undertake an assessment of the historic Gingerbread House district. With their intricate ornamentation, these turn-of-the-century structures are icons of Haiti’s rich and vibrant past. Their revitalization is also an important symbol for the country’s recovery. This mission report documents the assessment process and outcomes, including mapping of the historic buildings, photographic documentation of damage, an online Gingerbread Damage Survey Database, a preliminary condition and repair feasibility analysis, recommendations for conservation strategies, and community workshops to advance the revitalization process.
Hizuchi Elementary School
Date: October 2012Type: Slide Show
Country: Japan
The 2012 World Monuments Fund/Knoll Modernism Prize has been awarded to the Architectural Consortium for Hizuchi Elementary School for the restoration of Hizuchi Elementary School. Located in Yawatahama City, Ehime Prefecture, Japan, the school is a post-war functionalist wood school designed by Masatsune Matsumura (1913–1993), a once little-known, but now greatly admired Japanese municipal architect. The school was completed between 1956 and 1958 and restored by the Consortium between 2006 and 2009.
2012 World Monuments Watch - Initial Report (pdf)
Date: 2012Type: WMF Publication
Keywords: World Monuments Watch
Abstract:
The 2012 World Monuments Watch sites range from ancient to modern, from urban to remote, and from grand to vernacular. Each site represents a fascinating story of human accomplishment, but equally presents a challenge today for issues as varied as improved stewardship, sustainable tourism, lack of funds, or a need for greater technical expertise. All the sites share two important traits: a nominator who cares passionately and the potential for improved circumstances.
Zamość Renaissance Synagogue
Date: September 2012Type: Slide Show
Related Projects: ZAMOŚĆ RENAISSANCE SYNAGOGUE
Country: Poland
Built during the early seventeenth century, Zamość Synagogue is one of the few surviving Renaissance synagogues in Poland and is one of the most architecturally significant synagogues in the country. It is located in the Old Town of Zamość, which was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site for being one of the most beautiful and enduring examples of Renaissance urban planning in Europe. The synagogue is a seamless addition to the streetscape, contributing to the stylistic homogeneity of the town.
World Monuments Fund: An Overview
Date: October 2009Type: Video
Keywords: field project, World Monuments Watch
Since 1965, World Monuments Fund (WMF) has helped save hundreds of sites in more than 90 countries. Our projects range from mapping ancient cities to conserving modern masterpieces. This 4-minute video provides a snapshot of key WMF projects and our five core programs of advocacy, education and training, cultural legacy, capacity building, and disaster recovery.
World Monuments Fund: The First Thirty Years (pdf)
Date: 1996Type: WMF Publication
Keywords: historic preservation, histories, non profit organizations, restoration
Abstract:
Tracing the origins of World Monuments Fund (WMF) to 1965, this publication explains how James A. Gray, a retired U.S. Army Colonel, created the non-profit, New York-based International Fund for Monuments, the first private organization to focus on the conservation of important buildings, archaeological sites, and works of art on a global scale. Early projects included work at the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela, Ethopia, conservation of the statues of Easter Island, and restoration of several important buildings following intense flooding in Venice in 1966. Following Gray’s retirement, Bonnie Burnham took the helm in 1984, at which point the organization was renamed the World Monuments Fund. In addition to new projects in Mexico City and St. Trophime, France, Burnham helped to develop an increasingly close relationship with the Kress Foundation, which sponsored the WMF European Preservation Program in 1987. The late 1980s also saw the establishment of the Jewish Heritage Program. By the early 1990s, WMF was expanding its operations abroad through affiliate organizations, using WMF’s name but independently soliciting funds and selecting projects, engaging the social, economic and political elite of a given country to conserve high profile sites according to the highest professional standards. WMF also established the annual Hadrian Award to recognize leadership in the preservation field, as well as the World Monuments Watch Program, compiling a list of one hundred endangered sites every two years. This publication includes a list of major donors as well as a catalogue of projects completed or in progress as of 1995.
Saving our Past: A Race Against Time (pdf)
Date: 1990Type: WMF Publication
Keywords: historic preservation, histories, non profit organizations, restoration
Abstract:
This volume was published to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of World Monuments Fund (WMF), the first private, non-profit organization that sponsoring worldwide preservation activities. It consists of a series of project profiles from the defining WMF projects completed or in progress as of 1990. These profiles include the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista, as well as a series of buildings restored following the Venice floods of 1966; murals in Mexico City following the earthquake of 1985; the Church of St. Trophime in Arles, France; St. Anne’s Church in New York; the Citadelle Henri in Haiti; and the Angkor Temple complex in Cambodia.