Founding of ICOMOS

The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) was founded in Warsaw in 1965, one year after the Second International Congress of Architects and Technicians of Historic Monuments adopted the Venice Charter, to give that charter's conservation principles a permanent international professional body. ICOMOS brings together architects, historians, archaeologists and conservators through national committees around the world, and it serves as the official advisory body to UNESCO's World Heritage Committee, evaluating nominations of cultural sites to the World Heritage List and monitoring threats to listed properties. Its founding gave the international heritage-conservation movement launched by the Venice Charter a standing institutional home rather than a one-time declaration.