Argentine Committee of ICOMOS

Argentine Committee of ICOMOS

 

The Argentine Committee of ICOMOS was created on May 21, 1973 by a group of professionals comprising Jorge Gazaneo, Ramón Gutiérrez, Alberto Nicolini, Federico Ortiz, Mabel Scarone, Juan Alberto Schellenberg and Marina Waisman. The Illuminated Block, Peru 272, City of Buenos Aires, was established as the headquarters of the organization.

The presidency of the Committee was exercised by Jorge Gazaneo (1973-1982), Carlos Pernaut (1983-1985), María de las Nieves Arias Incollá (1986-1992), Carlos Pernaut (1993-1999), Freddy Guidi (1999-2006), Alfredo Conti (2007-2012), Rubén Eduardo Vera (2012-2015) and Pedro Delheye since 2015.

The sovereign body of the Argentine Committee is the Ordinary Assembly that meets once a year. Elections are held every three years for the renewal of the Board of Directors composed of four members who hold the following positions: President, Vice President, Secretary, Secretary of Finance. Likewise, the Ordinary Assembly elects for the same period of time the Federal Advisory Committee composed of a Delegate and a Deputy-delegate from each of the following regions of the country:

  1. Pampeana – Metropolitana (province of Buenos Aires and Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires)
  2. Nordeste – Litoral (provinces of Corrientes, Chaco, Entre Ríos, Formosa, Misiones and Santa Fe)
  3. Noroeste (provinces of Catamarca, Jujuy, Santiago del Estero, Tucumán and Salta)
  4. Centro (province of Córdoba)
  5. Cuyo (provinces of La Rioja, Mendoza, San Juan and San Luis)
  6. Comahue – Patagonia (provinces of Chubut, La Pampa, Neuquén, Río Negro, Santa Cruz and Tierra del Fuego).

In 1994, following  a meeting held in the city of San Miguel de Tucumán, the Committee began a process of growth through the inclusion of members from all regions of the country and the diverse disciplines which are involved in the protection of heritage and expand its concept and scope of action. In 2007, the annual Ordinary Assembly foreseen by the Statutes was held in Rosario, for the first time outside the city of Buenos Aires. That year, the motion to change the location of the Assemblies was approved in order to facilitate the participation of members from all regions of the country while stimulating an important academic activity on the occasion of the annual meeting of ICOMOS Argentina..

Subsequent Ordinary Assemblies took place in the cities of Buenos Aires (2008) and San Juan with the Conference on Urban Historic Landscapes (2009, ICOMOS Argentina – UNSJ-IDIS), La Plata with the Latin American Conference on Heritage and Development (2010, ICOMOS Argentina – UCALP); Tucumán with the Conference on Urban and Architectural Heritage (2011, ICOMOS Argentina-UNT), Mendoza with the National Conference on Routes and Cultural Routes: from the regional scale to transnational projects (2012, ICOMOS Argentina-UM – UC), La Plata with the Second Latin American Conference on Heritage and Development (2013, ICOMOS Argentina- UCALP- CAPBA 1), Posadas with the First Latin American Conference on Heritage and Inclusion (2014, ICOMOS Argentina- UNaM), La Plata with the Third Latin American Conference on Heritage and Development (ICOMOS Argentina- UCALP- CAPBA1), Buenos Aires with the ICOMOS Latin American Meeting on the 20th Century Industrial Heritage (2017, ICOMOS Argentina – University of Palermo).

ICOMOS Argentina has accompanied the expansion of the concept of cultural heritage and fostered the emergence of other voices and arguments connecting heritage to sustainable development, cultural and urban policies, the socio-environmental context and the participation of civil society.

For this reason, we are combining these important academic gatherings with fora enabling the participation of young professionals. The starting point of these meetings was in Misiones, in 2014, on the occasion of the First Latin American Conference on Heritage and Inclusion. That same year, the first forum was held. The second was held on the occasion of the meeting in Buenos Aires in 2015. The third edition took place in Tucumán, in the framework of the celebrations commemorating the 200 years of Argentine’s independence, at this incredible meeting entitled The Cultural Heritage of the Bicentennial – 200 years of Territory, City and Architecture. The most recent was held in Buenos Aires in 2017 on the occasion of the meeting on Industrial Heritage.

Also, on May 16, 2017, ICOMOS Argentina held the First External Seminar on Cultural Heritage and Legislation : the heritage that we must take care of, precisely in the building where the national laws are elaborated: the Congress of the Argentine Nation. The success and the quality of debates achieved with the participation of leading figures from the cultural and legal field from across the whole country sparked off the necessity to develop meetings that could tackle the various problems that today characterize the field of culture in general, and the heritage in particular, and to hold these discussions in front of those who must legislate, expecting, precisely, a change in approach. The first of these breakfast meetings was dedicated to practices and expressions of popular culture (circus, murga, carnival), the second dealt with the intellectual property regime. Native peoples and the recovery of cinema and neighborhood theaters were the following topics that were discussed. For this, specialists and civil society organizations fighting for their rights were invited to speak.

In summary, throughout its 45 uninterrupted years of work, the Argentine Committee of ICOMOS has advised public organizations and institutions on issues relating to heritage, has organized conferences, scientific meetings and outreach meetings, has published books and newsletters that have disseminated theoretical and operational aspects of heritage conservation.

 

 

The implementation of the World Heritage Convention in Argentina

 

The Argentine Republic ratified the World Heritage Convention in 1978, through Law No. 21836. Thereafter it was elected to the World Heritage Committee twice, between 1978 and 1985 and between 2001 and 2005. In 1984, the annual meeting of the World Heritage Committee took place in Buenos Aires. Since it ratified the Convention, the country has had eleven properties included on the World Heritage List, none of which is on the List of World Heritage in Danger:

  1. Los Glaciares National Park, natural site, 1981.
  2. Iguazu National Park, natural site, 1984.
  3. Jesuit Missions of the Guaranis, cultural site, 1984. Included in the Brazilian property listed the previous year, therefore now constituting a Transnational World Heritage site.
  4. Península Valdés, natural site, 1999.
  5. Cueva de las Manos, Río Pinturas, cultural site, 1999.
  6. Ischigualasto / Talampaya Natural Parks, natural site, 2000.
  7. Jesuit Block and Estancias of Córdoba, cultural site, 2000.
  8. Quebrada de Humahuaca, cultural site, 2003.
  9. Qhapaq Ñan, Andean Road System, transnational cultural site, together with Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, 2014.
  10. The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier, an Outstanding Contribution to the Modern Movement (includes the Curutchet House, in La Plata, province of Buenos Aires), transnational cultural site, together with Germany, Belgium, France, India, Japan and Switzerland, 2016.
  11. Los Alerces National Park, natural site, 2017.

The Argentine World Heritage Committee, a collegiate committee composed of representatives of national organizations with competence in both natural and cultural world heritage, is in charge of the implementation of the Convention in the country, it includes: the Argentine National Commission for UNESCO (CONAPLU), the National Directorate of Heritage and Museums, the National Institute of Anthropology and Latin American Thought, the National Commission of Monuments, Places and Historical Heritage, the National Parks Administration, the Ministry of Tourism and the Secretariat of Environment and Sustainable Development. In order to fulfill the objectives of the Convention, the Committee coordinates and articulates the work of the actors involved with the World Heritage properties of the country and constitutes the link between the national, provincial and municipal authorities and UNESCO, its World Heritage Center and its advisory bodies (ICOMOS, IUCN, ICCROM).

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