ICOMOS stands for the International Council on Monuments and Sites, and we are a worldwide non-governmental organisation (NGO).
ICOMOS was created in 1965, the fruit of the numerous conversations between architects, historians and international experts that had been ongoing since the beginning of the century. These discussions led to the adoption of the Venice Charter in 1964, which set international guidelines for the conservation and restoration of historic buildings; founding ICOMOS was the logical next step.
Our mission is to promote the conservation, protection, use and enhancement of monuments, built environments, and cultural heritage places. In order to do this, we play a major role in the development of standards of good practice, which we use to form our reference texts, as well as in evolving, promoting and sharing ideas. We continue this through our advocacy work, ensuring that our knowledge of, and belief in the importance of cultural heritage has the greatest impact possible.
Central to our efforts is our role as an Advisory Body of the World Heritage Committee, working to implement the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. As an Advisory Body, we review nominations for cultural and mixed World Heritage Sites. Importantly, we also monitor and advise on the conservation status of inscribed properties.
Since ICOMOS’ inception, we have been responsible for building up a broad philosophical and doctrinal framework for the heritage sector globally. This framework comes out of the numerous studies, conferences, symposia and discussions that our National Committees, International Scientific Committees and Working Groups have led and continue to lead. ICOMOS is as such not only a key player in advocacy but also the meeting point of international expertise in the field.
ICOMOS is made up of an enormously diverse range of people with varying, complementary professional and cultural backgrounds, from civil servants to academic researchers to private sector employees. Our members work together in a spirit of collegiality, respecting one another’s diverse professional and technical knowledge, across cultures and belief systems.
As an NGO, in all circumstances – and especially as one of the three World Heritage Convention Advisory Bodies – we rely on our members, whose professional experience and expertise, technical know-how and independence allow us to work with impartiality and according to a shared ethical code.
At ICOMOS, we endeavour to bring people and cultures together. This involves facilitating the work and movement of members in disadvantaged or crisis situations. During major natural disasters and conflicts, ICOMOS’ experts and specialists are mobilised to develop emergency measures for preserving, conserving and restoring damaged or at-risk heritage. This is also evidenced by our role as a founding member of the Blue Shield.
A key part of our mission at ICOMOS is to raise awareness of heritage and related challenges, and to exchange knowledge and know-how between generations. As such, we mentor emerging professionals, who are deeply involved with the issues at stake and in our different actions. Emerging professionals can be elected to positions of responsibility in their respective Committees as well as on the Board of ICOMOS, exchanging their know-how with more established members of the organisation.
At ICOMOS, we believe that free and unrestricted access to scientific knowledge is fundamental to good heritage conservation. To enable this, we have our own open access archive platform, PUBLICOMOS. Additionally, ICOMOS’ Documentation Centre offers a wealth of documentary resources, with over 40,000 titles and 40,000 graphic documents, World Heritage documents, and more.