2008 Annual Report - World Monuments Fund

Watch listing in 2008 brought
international attention to
the 18th-century Fenestrelle
Fortress, the “Great Wall of
the Alps,” and prompted the
province of Torino to launch a
design competition to gather
ideas for its future use. The
Portuguese landscape architect
João Ferreira Nunes was
announced the winner of the
competition in summer 2008.
4
Students learn to apply
lime wash to a tomb in
the historic Lafayette I
cemetery while training
at the 2008 New Orleans
Field School.
Advocacy
We have come to learn that restoration isn’t always
enough: we need to create awareness in the general
public that heritage is worth saving and that important
sites are in crisis. In 1996, we launched the World
Monuments Watch, our signature advocacy tool.
The Watch, our biennial list of 100 endangered sites,
is known around the world and helps spread the
word beyond the preservation community about the
importance of our mission.
This program has been highly successful: we’ve listed
more than 500 sites in almost 80 countries and given
$58 million, which, in turn, has leveraged $140 million
from supporters across the globe.
Education and Training
All our projects offer great opportunities to educate
the public and, we hope, to create a new generation of
preservation stewards. We are focused on people, not
just places.
We work at home in the United States, as well as all over the world. We need to
understand our own history and encourage public pride in preserving it. In the United
States, we also need to help preserve building traditions and crafts, since these skills,
brought to America in past centuries, have nearly died out.
At sites around the U.S., we convene experts to teach the next generation how to work
with traditional buildings. Our hands-on field schools give practical experience to both
academic students and young craftspeople. We want to give everyone the chance to
learn from and with us.