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May 09, 2016

Sunny Sundays are Made for Modernism in London

Isokon Building and Gallery
On that rare thing—a glorious spring weekend morning in London—I was treated to a tour of the Isokon Building and Gallery in Hampstead. Built in the 1930s by Wells Coates for Jack and Molly Pritchard, the Isokon building epitomizes the values of the interwar modern period through its founding principles and design, as well as the challenges faced by modern architecture throughout the twentieth century.
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May 04, 2016

Visiting Cuba

Hotel Habana Riviera, El Vedado, Cuba
The 2016 World Monuments Watch includes three sites in Cuba. Norma Barbacci visited the sites in January.
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May 02, 2016

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles—Destination: Venice

Exterior view of Schola Canton, 2016
One of the many perks of my job as Program Associate at World Monuments Fund is that every now and then, I get to travel to some of the sites under my purview. I have the opportunity to visit the wonderful projects I get to work on, and most of all, to meet with the local people involved at these sites.
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April 28, 2016

Nowroz in Dalieh

Nowroz celebration in Dalieh
Over the years, Dalieh—included on the 2016 Watch—has been used by a wide variety of social groups who have animated the life of this area while providing a form of sustainable livelihood for many low-income city-dwellers.
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March 24, 2016

Restoration Continues at Garuda #39

Garuda #39, mock-up before final reassembly
Preah Khan temple at Angkor Archaeological Park is surrounded by 72 large carved Garudas, divine eagle-like beings that are the physical and symbolic protectors of the temple.
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March 14, 2016

A Visit to Presbítero Maestro Cemetery in Lima

On October 30, 2015, I took the newly completed electric train in Lima and after a short ride I left the chaos of the city behind and entered an oasis of peace, of the rest-in-peace kind that is. I could not think of a more appropriate place to visit on the eve of Halloween, than the Presbítero Maestro Cemetery-Museum, a 2006 World Monuments Watch site.
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November 12, 2015

Stabilizing Babylon

The Babylon Conservation Action Group was formed by the Babylon Committee, who oversees the Iraq State Board of Antiquities and Heritage (SBAH) and World Monuments Fund partnership project.
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November 12, 2015

Tools of the Trades

When my wife Laura Saeger and I were asked to become part of the World Monuments Fund team working to restore Shwe-nandaw Kyaung, Mandalay’s most prized monastery, we knew we would face some challenges, including understanding the ancient way of timber frame building in Myanmar, working with teak, a wood we were unfamiliar with, and working in an environment nearly 2000 miles closer to the equator than we have ever been before. What we hadn’t anticipated was just how difficult finding the tools of our trade, in this recently opened country, would be.
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