International Council on Monuments and Sites

The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS; French: Conseil international des monuments et des sites) is a professional association that works for the conservation and protection of cultural heritage places around the world. Now headquartered in Charenton-le-Pont, France, ICOMOS was founded in 1965 in Warsaw as a result of the Venice Charter of 1964 and offers advice to UNESCO on World Heritage Sites. The idea behind ICOMOS dates to the Athens Conference on the restoration of historic buildings in 1931, organized by the International Museums Office. The Athens Charter of 1931 introduced the concept of international heritage. In 1964, the Second Congress of Architects and Specialists of Historic Buildings, meeting in Venice, adopted 13 resolutions. The first created the International Charter on the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites, better known as Venice Charter; the second, put forward by UNESCO, created ICOMOS to carry out this charter. As of 2026, ICOMOS has over 12,000 individual members in over 130 countries and territories, 110 national committees, and over 30 international scientific committees. With rare exceptions, each member must be qualified in the field of conservation and a practicing landscape architect, architect, archaeologist, anthropologist, town planner, engineer, administrator of heritage, historian, art historian, palaeontologist or archivist. ICOMOS is a partner and founding member of the Blue Shield, which works to protect the world's cultural heritage threatened by war and natural disasters. ICOMOS structure ICOMOS is composed of its national committees (NCs), to which individuals and institutions apply for membership. In addition to the national committees, ICOMOS has a series of international scientific committees (ISCs), in which experts in a certain field of activity within the context of heritage conservation exchange views and debate. The organization is headed by a president, five vice-presidents, a secretary-general and a treasurer all directly elected by the general assembly of the organization. Twelve additional members are also elected by the General Assembly into the Executive Committee and five further members are co-opted into the executive board in order to represent regions of the world or areas of expertise that were not part of the executive committee following the elections. Ex officio members of the executive committee are the president of the advisory committee and the previous presidents of ICOMOS, who attend in advisory capacity. The executive committee is the executive body of ICOMOS. The advisory committee is composed of the chairpersons of the national committees, the presidents/chairpersons of the international scientific committees and the president of ICOMOS as an ex officio member. The advisory committee was given the task to advise and make recommendations to the General Assembly and the Executive Committee on matters which concern policy and programme priorities. National Committees National Committees are subsidiary organizations created in the countries which are members of UNESCO. They bring together individual and institutional members and offer them a framework for discussion and an exchange of information. Each national committee adopts its own rules of procedure and elaborates its own program according to the goals and aims of ICOMOS. In 2021, ICOMOS has 107 national committees. ICOMOS website includes a list regularly updated. International Scientific Committees International Scientific Committees (ISCs) are entities focus on specialised areas of heritage conservation and are made up of members of the organisation drawn from those specialist areas. The scientific programmes of the organisation are coordinated by the "scientific council" made up of the presidents of the ISCs. In 2026, ICOMOS had over 30 ISCs. A list regularly updated is available on ICOMOS website . Working groups ICOMOS leads efforts worldwide to advance knowledge and practice in cultural heritage protection, conservation and restoration. In order to address emerging priorities and key topics that involve many, or all, International Scientific Committees, ICOMOS have set up working groups. These working groups bring together different ICOMOS members and heritage professionals: architects, archaeologists, professors and researchers, curators and scientists. The aim of these groups can be the drafting of a charter, the implementation of concrete activities (working sessions, workshops). There are currently five working groups, the list of which can be found on the ICOMOS website . Documentation ICOMOS' documentation center is located at the association's headquarters in Greater Paris. It is a major resource on cultural heritage, original documents on cultural and Mixed (natural and cultural) World Heritage properties, and it collects, analyses and disseminates information on all methods of heritage conservation, especially through its bibliographic database (+80,000 references) and its graphic documents database (+40,000 references). Publications ICOMOS International publishes on a regular basis ICOMOS News (newsletter for members, quarterly in French, English, Spanish) and the ICOMOS Scientific Journal (published twice a year). ICOMOS France regularly publishes Le Bulletin d’information d’Icomos France, Les Cahiers de la Section Française de l’ICOMOS, Les Dossiers techniques, Les Mémentos techniques, les Bulletins, and Les Enquêtes de la section française. Charters and doctrines ICOMOS has developed and adopted a number of other charters and doctrinal texts which provide guidance to heritage conservation professionals. Those documents are created by the international committees of the organisation or a Working Group established to address the issue, and are then adopted by the triennial General Assembly. Each text addresses a specific area of professional practice of heritage conservation. Those charters and other doctrinal texts include: Many of the national committees of ICOMOS have adopted their own charters which set standards for heritage conservation practice at national level. ICOMOS and the World Heritage Convention In 1972, ICOMOS was named by the UNESCO World Heritage Convention as one of the three formal advisory bodies to the World Heritage Committee, along with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM). As the professional and scientific adviser to the committee on all aspects of the cultural heritage, ICOMOS is responsible for the evaluation of all nominations of cultural properties made to the World Heritage List with the criteria laid down by the World Heritage Committee. In addition to the basic criterion of “outstanding universal value,” ICOMOS evaluates nominations for aspects related to authenticity, management, and conservation as specified in the World Heritage Convention. The evaluation of nominations involves consultation between the wide-ranging expertise represented by the organization’s membership and its national and scientific committees. Members are also sent on expert missions to carry out on-site evaluations of nominated properties. This extensive consultation results in the preparation of detailed recommendations that are submitted to the World Heritage Committee at its annual meetings. ICOMOS is also involved, through its International Secretariat and its national and scientific committees, in the preparation of reports on the state of conservation of properties inscribed on the World Heritage List. It advises the UNESCO World Heritage Centre on requests for technical assistance received from states that are party to (i.e. have ratified) the World Heritage Convention. ICOMOS maintains a full archive of nominations and reports at the documentation centre at its Paris headquarters. Piero Gazzola award The Gazzola Prize was established in 1979 in memory of Piero Gazzola, one of the greatest defenders of the conservation and restoration of historic monuments and sites, and a founder of ICOMOS. The prize is awarded every three years at the General Assembly of ICOMOS to an individual or a group of people who have worked together and contributed with distinction to the aims and objectives of ICOMOS. The beneficiary must be a member of ICOMOS and is chosen by the Selection Committee itself elected by the ICOMOS Board. The Prize is a commemorative medal and diploma. List of awardees 1981 – Jean Trouvelot 1984 – Stanislaw Lorentz 1987 – Masuru Sekino 1990 – Gertrud Tripp 1993 – Bernard Feilden 1996 – Ernest Allan Connally 1999 – Roland Silva 2002 – Cevat Erder 2005 – Ann Webster Smith 2008 – Carmen Añón Feliu 2011 – Nobuo Ito 2014 – Henry Cleere 2017 – Saleh Lamei Mostafa 2020 – Amund Sinding-Larsen List of ICOMOS General Assemblies, Presidents and Secretaries General See also International Day For Monuments and Sites References External links Official website List of National Committees ICOMOS Database Archived 2011-06-03 at the Wayback Machine, unesco.org Friends of World Heritage Non-profit organization that identifies projects that support local tourism enterprises that can help alleviate poverty and conserve World Heritage sites. The Nara Document on Authenticity (1994) The Blue Shield