A foundation for reconstruction in the face of conflicts and climate change

Focus on the “World Monuments Fund”, an international and independent non-governmental organization, which is dedicated to the preservation of the cultural heritage of humanity, and exceptional historic sites, throughout the world.

European microphone is dedicated today to the discovery of a little-known, or even little-known, foundation, the World Monuments Fund, WMF, or the Foundation of Monuments of the World, with its general director, Mathilde Auger.

franceinfo: What is the WMF?

Mathilde Auger: The World Monuments Fund is today one of the main NGOs in the world responsible for heritage protection.

In charge of heritage protection, we of course think in the event of conflict, so reconstruction?

We have an extremely active crisis response policy. There are disasters of natural origin, such as earthquakes, a lot at the moment, but also, obviously, conflicts. Which calls for a policy of reconstruction, in fact.

You are an international NGO. You have 50 projects in 34 countries. Let’s start with Europe with preservation projects, France, Portugal, Spain for example, or the United Kingdom?

Preservation and restoration projects, for example, in France, we have just restored a chapel in the Saint-Eustache church in Paris. In the United Kingdom, we are working on the large greenhouses at Kew Gardens, to adapt current greenhouses to contemporary issues, and in particular, global warming.

In Portugal, it is the port of Lisbon, with an exciting project where we are restoring modernist frescoes in the port of Lisbon, which is a very little known place, very little open, but which has a vocation, then , after the completion of the restoration work, to be open to the public.

Then projects in Cambodia, Iraq, the Mosul museum, in Africa too…

We work a lot in Cambodia, and we were the first organization to intervene in Cambodia after the fall of the Khmer Rouge. Here we work in the great temple of Preah Khan. In Africa, it is a very large project at the Maison du Peuple in Ouagadougou which is a modern architectural building built by René Faublée. And in Iraq, it is a very, very large project to reconstruct the Mosul museum, which we are carrying out in partnership with the Louvre museum, the Smithsonian and the Aliph Foundation.

Because the Mosul museum had been seriously affected in Iraq, even destroyed…

We remember the images of the great works of the Mosul museum, effectively destroyed with a jackhammer. So the Louvre is responsible for the restoration of these works. And the WMF is taking care of the reconstruction of the museum.

And then, with us, Katarina Goncharova who is Ukrainian. Katarina Goncharov is in charge of damage assessment in Ukraine. At what level ?

Katarina Goncharova: The Foundation committed to supporting the damage assessment project at the start of the war, because we absolutely needed to have complete information on the cultural sites that had been, and still are, damaged as the war progressed. and as the war continues…

Do you have any examples to give us?

Our team has carried out on-site damage assessments for more than 800 sites.

Do you mean museums, churches?

These buildings have defined historical significance, and national or local significance, according to Ukrainian cultural heritage records, including architectural sites, cemeteries, museums, archaeological sites.

Mathilde Auger, 50 projects for 34 countries around the world, including this Ukrainian project. How do you proceed, do you intervene, or are you asked to intervene, the local actors?

Mathilde Auger: We operate a lot through calls for applications with our main system, which is called Watch. It’s a call for applications every two years, and it allows us, based on our juries of international experts, to draw up a list of 25 sites in danger around the world, which we will then support in different ways. as required.