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UTSA faculty helping to preserve cultural sites in war-torn Iraq
Jan 14, 2014, 6:15am CST
University of Texas at San Antonio College of Architecture faculty have been working with the World Monuments Fund for the past year to train individuals in Iraq how to conserve Iraq’s 10,000 cultural heritage sites.
In the wake of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and subsequent theft and damage, Iraqi and Kurdish conservationists have struggled to preserve these historic sites.
As a result, the UTSA Center for Cultural Sustainability, housed within the College of Architecture, has been working with the World Monuments Fund to provide advanced training to Iraq’s conservationists. Working through the World Monuments Fund’s Heritage Management Training Program, the partners have been able to graduate the first class of conservationists at a private ceremony at the Iraqi Institute for the Conservation of Antiquities and Heritage in Erbil, Iraq.
San Antonio Conservation Society Endowed UTSA Professor and the center’s Director William Dupont and UTSA architecture professor and researcher Angela Lombardi were among the instructors invited to participate in the program, which was sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. They provided five weeks worth of intensive training in three visits.
Program participants learned historic preservation techniques and guidelines from the International Council on Monuments and Sites through preservation exercises, seminars and workshops.
The fund will offer similar training again with UTSA and other organizations in Erbil later this year.
“We are delighted at the success of this program,” says Lisa Ackerman, the executive vice president of WMF. “Training a new generation of heritage specialists in Iraq will increase the capacity for proper management of historic sites in the country. We look forward to the 2014 program.”
For nearly 50 years, the New York-based World Monuments Fund has worked in 100 countries to preserve architectural and cultural heritage sites worldwide.
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Jan 14, 2014, 6:15am CST
University of Texas at San Antonio College of Architecture faculty have been working with the World Monuments Fund for the past year to train individuals in Iraq how to conserve Iraq’s 10,000 cultural heritage sites.
In the wake of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and subsequent theft and damage, Iraqi and Kurdish conservationists have struggled to preserve these historic sites.
As a result, the UTSA Center for Cultural Sustainability, housed within the College of Architecture, has been working with the World Monuments Fund to provide advanced training to Iraq’s conservationists. Working through the World Monuments Fund’s Heritage Management Training Program, the partners have been able to graduate the first class of conservationists at a private ceremony at the Iraqi Institute for the Conservation of Antiquities and Heritage in Erbil, Iraq.
San Antonio Conservation Society Endowed UTSA Professor and the center’s Director William Dupont and UTSA architecture professor and researcher Angela Lombardi were among the instructors invited to participate in the program, which was sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. They provided five weeks worth of intensive training in three visits.
Program participants learned historic preservation techniques and guidelines from the International Council on Monuments and Sites through preservation exercises, seminars and workshops.
The fund will offer similar training again with UTSA and other organizations in Erbil later this year.
“We are delighted at the success of this program,” says Lisa Ackerman, the executive vice president of WMF. “Training a new generation of heritage specialists in Iraq will increase the capacity for proper management of historic sites in the country. We look forward to the 2014 program.”
For nearly 50 years, the New York-based World Monuments Fund has worked in 100 countries to preserve architectural and cultural heritage sites worldwide.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
