2024 World Monuments Summit
The fourth annual World Monuments Summit brings together World Monuments Fund's (WMF) global team of experts, partners, thought leaders, and guests for a series of discussions on heritage preservation at Rockefeller Center in New York City, home to WMF's headquarters.
This year's conference will explore efforts to preserve Venice’s artistic and cultural legacy; initiatives to build resilience in historic gardens through climate-focused strategies; and more.
Join us for this one-of-a-kind event to learn about the future of WMF’s work and support our efforts to preserve a myriad of cultural heritage sites and monuments around the world.
Date: Saturday, October 26, 2024
Time: 1:00 pm - 5:30 pm (ET)
Location: Studio by Tishman Speyer, 45 Rockefeller Plaza, 27th Floor, New York, NY 10111
The 2024 World Monuments Summit is supported by Studio by Tishman Speyer and is held in conjunction with World Monuments Fund’s 2024 Hadrian Gala. Additional support is provided by official catering sponsor Jupiter.
The 2024 Hadrian Gala is made possible by the generosity of Gregory Annenberg Weingarten, GRoW @ Annenberg and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF). Additional support is provided by Tiffany & Co.
Event Schedule*
1:00-2:10 pm ET | Is Venice Doomed? The Race to Save La Serenissima
A conversation on past, present, and future efforts to preserve one of the world’s great artistic and cultural centers, 58 years after WMF’s first involvement there.
Moderated by Bénédicte de Montlaur, WMF President and CEO, with guest speakers Adam Freed, Principal at Bloomberg Associates; Dr. Marilyn Perry, art historian, philanthropist, and 2024 Hadrian Award recipient; Dr. Carlo Ratti, Director of MIT Senseable City Lab and Founding Partner of Carlo Ratti Associati; and Anna Somers Cocks, Co-Founder of The Art Newspaper.
– Coffee break –
2:30 to 3:40 pm ET | Building Climate Resilience at Historic Gardens
A discussion about new approaches making historic parks and green spaces more resilient to the effects of climate change and ensuring their continued existence as public spaces for recreation, education, and more.
Moderated by Dr. Caroline Weber, art historian and professor of French, with guest speakers Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, landscape preservationist and Founder of the Central Park Conservancy; Deborah Nevins, landscape designer and President of Deborah Nevins & Associates; and Dr. Meredith Wiggins, WMF Senior Director, Climate Adaptation.
– Coffee break –
4:00 to 5:10 pm ET | An Unprecedented WMF Expedition to the Peruvian Cloud Forest: Río Abiseo and the Chachapoyas Civilization
A preview of the findings of the exploration of Peru’s remote Río Abiseo National Park, a natural and cultural UNESCO World Heritage site, and the challenges of studying and preserving its rich archaeological remains in a protected environment.
Moderated by Jonathan S. Bell, WMF Vice President of Programs, with guest speakers Dr. arch Adine Gavazzi, UNESCO Chair University of Genoa / UNESCO Chair Università della Svizzera Italiana
LIDAR and Technomorphology in the WMF Abiseo Expedition; Juan Pablo de la Puente, WMF Peru Board Member; and Luis Alfredo Narváez Vargas, General Coordinator of the Río Abiseo Project.
Reception to follow
*Schedule subject to change.
About the Speakers
Elizabeth Barlow Rogers
Landscape Preservationist and Founder of the Central Park Conservancy
Elizabeth Barlow Rogers was appointed Central Park administrator in 1979 and founded the Central Park Conservancy in 1981. She led the Conservancy as president until 1996, when she founded the Cityscape Institute. In 2002, she created the Garden History and Landscape Studies curriculum at the Bard Graduate Center. A writer on the history of landscape design and the cultural meaning of place, Rogers is the author of Writing the Garden: A Literary Conversation Across Two Centuries (David R. Godine, Publisher, 2011); Romantic Gardens: Nature, Art, and Landscape Design (David R. Godine, Publisher, 2010); Rebuilding Central Park: A Management and Restoration Plan (The MIT Press, 1987); and more. Rogers earned a BA degree from Wellesley College and an MA in city planning from Yale University.
Adam Freed
Principal, Bloomberg Associates
Adam leads the Sustainability Practice at Bloomberg Associates, where he advises cities on the development and execution of sustainability strategies to modernize infrastructure and the built environment for decarbonization and resilience. Prior to Bloomberg Associates, Adam was the Deputy Managing Director of The Nature Conservancy’s Global Water Program, where he spearheaded partnerships with corporate, government, and community stakeholders to advance water infrastructure projects that combined environmental conservation with economic sustainability. From 2008-2012, Adam helped lead Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s sustainability efforts, overseeing the implementation of New York City’s sustainability agenda and creating the city’s first climate adaptation program. During this time, the City planted 1 million trees, enacted the nation’s most aggressive green buildings legislation, achieved the cleanest air quality in over 50 years, launched a $2 billion green infrastructure program, and lowered its GHG emissions 12%. Adam is also Lecturer at Columbia University on urban sustainability and adaptation, a member of the NYC Water Board, and on the Board of the New York Climate Exchange. He received his master's in Urban Planning from New York University and was a Mel King Community Fellow at MIT.
Adine Gavazzi, Dr arch
UNESCO Chair University of Genoa / UNESCO Chair Università della Svizzera Italiana
LIDAR and Technomorphology in the WMF Abiseo Expedition
Dr. Adine Gavazzi is a Swiss and Italian architect specialized in Anthropology of the Andes and the Amazon researching forest cultures, healing landscapes and pre-colonial and indigenous ceremonial architecture. Dr. Gavazzi worked throughout the regions of the Neotropics and at the World Heritage sites of Nasca, Cusco, Machupicchu, Tiahuanaco and Río Abiseo. Her field techno-morphology defined a disciplinary theoretical basis for the analysis of WHS Tangible and Intangible Heritage in three continents. Dr. Gavazzi is a founding member of the UNESCO Chair of the University of Genoa and in Peru professor at the Universidad Nacional Pedro Ruíz Gallo of Lambayeque, the Universidad Nacional Intercultural de Amazonia in Pucallpa, and the Universidad Nacional Intercultural of Quillabamba. She collaborates actively with UNESCO Chair in ICT to develop and promote sustainable tourism in World Heritage Sites at the Università Della Svizzera Italiana.
Luis Alfredo Narváez Vargas
General Coordinator, Río Abiseo Project
Luis Alfredo Narváez Vargas is a Peruvian social anthropologist and archaeologist. He has directed archaeological and ethnographic research projects in northern Peru and written books and articles related to Peruvian ethnography and archaeology, cultural management, museology, iconography, and pre-Hispanic mythology. The founder of the Túcume Museum and the Túcume Ecomuseum, Narváez served as former director of the Department of Culture of Lambayeque and director of the Naylamp Special Project of the Ministry of Culture. He is a member of the International Council of Museums-ICOM Peru and corresponding member of the Peruvian Academy of History and is Meritorious Personality of Culture in Peru. He is a graduate of the National University of Trujillo and holds a Master of Science studies from the Durrel Institute of the School of Anthropology of the University of Kent, England.
Deborah Nevins
President, Deborah Nevins & Associates
Deborah Nevins is president of Deborah Nevins & Associates, a landscape design firm founded more than 20 years ago. Noted for exciting visual experiences, a sophisticated use of plants, and a dedication to sustainability, her work includes the 40-acre Stavros Niarchos Cultural Center in Athens (with Renzo Piano Building Workshop), which, with the inclusion of drought tolerant native plants and other design interventions, is one of the largest green roofs in Europe; the expanded campus at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Art Institute of Chicago’s Pritzker Garden, and significant gardens and estates in the U.S., the Caribbean, and Europe. A historian of landscape and architecture, Nevins lectures widely and contributes to numerous books, journals, and periodicals.
Marilyn Perry, PhD
Art historian and philanthropist
2024 Hadrian Gala Honoree
Dr. Marilyn Perry is the Chair Emerita of WMF and its longest serving Board Member. A historian of European art, she lived in Venice in the 1970s prior to joining the Samuel H. Kress Foundation as President in 1981, retiring in 2007. She joined the Board of WMF in 1984 and served as Chair from 1990 to 2007, serving on all committees. Her current committee assignments are the Nominating and Governance Committee and the International Relations Committee. For WMF’s 50th anniversary in 2015, Dr. Perry wrote Hadrian’s Way: Creating World Monuments Fund (1965-2015) to document the organization's development and its impact on the evolving heritage world. Heritage remains a primary passion in her current life as a painter.
Juan Pablo de la Puente
WMF Peru Board Member
Juan Pablo de la Puente is a renowned lawyer specializing in the regulation of cultural assets, with a focus on the protection and management of cultural heritage, both in nonprofit preservation investments, as well as in mining, infrastructure and real estate projects. Former Deputy Minister of Cultural Heritage of Peru from 2015-2016, de la Puente served as Executive Director of the initial Peruvian Committee and then World Monuments Fund Peru from 2010-2015, where remains an active member of the Board of Directors. He is also a professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, and previously was a Visiting Scholar at Columbia Law School from 2022-2023, where he researched the impact of legal regulation as the cause of cultural sites underuse and destruction.
Carlo Ratti, PhD
Director, MIT Senseable City Lab and Founding Partner, Carlo Ratti Associati
An architect and engineer, Dr. Carlo Ratti teaches at MIT, where he directs the Senseable City Lab. He is also a founding partner of the international design office Carlo Ratti Associati and curator of the Venice Biennale Architettura 2025. He holds several patents and has co-authored over 250 publications, including The City of Tomorrow (Yale University Press, 2016). He has written for the New York Times, Financial Times, Project Syndicate, and more. His work has been exhibited at venues such as the Venice Biennale, the Design Museum Barcelona, the Science Museum in London, MAXXI in Rome, and MoMA. Dr. Ratti serves as co-chair of the World Economic Forum Global Future Council on Cities and Urbanization and as special adviser on Urban Innovation to the European Commission. He graduated from the Politecnico di Torino and the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris and holds an MPhil and PhD from the University of Cambridge, UK.
Anna Somers Cocks
Co-Founder of The Art Newspaper and former Chair of the Venice in Peril Fund
Anna Somers Cocks is the co-founder and former editor of The Art Newspaper and was chair of the Venice in Peril Fund from 2000 to 2012. During this time, the Fund financed a three-year research program at Cambridge University, which culminated in 120 scientists meeting in 2003 and agreeing that, contrary to some views, Venice definitely needed mobile barriers. She now writes regularly on the threat to Venice of the consequences of climate change. She was the co-winner of the 2013 Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere e Arti annual prize for the best journalism on Venice for her article “The Coming Death of Venice?” in the New York Review of Books, June 2013 (re-published in La Repubblica newspaper). She has been awarded honours by the governments of the UK and of Italy for her services to the arts and to Italy.
Caroline Weber, PhD
Art Historian and Professor of French and Comparative Literature, Barnard College
Dr. Caroline Weber is a Professor of French at Barnard College and Columbia University, where she specializes in the literature and culture of the Ancien Régime, the Enlightenment, and the French Revolution. She has held visiting professorships at Princeton University and Universite de Paris 1 (Sorbonne-Pantheon), and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the French-American Foundation, Edith Wharton’s the Mount, and the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. She is also a Fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities. Her most recent book, Proust’s Duchess, won the French Heritage Society Book Award and was a Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography.
Meredith Wiggins, PhD
Senior Director, Climate Adaptation, World Monuments Fund
Dr. Meredith Wiggins is an archaeologist and environmental researcher who works at the nexus of climate and culture. Dr. Wiggins comes to World Monuments Fund from the field of international development, where she has spent the last five years designing and implementing climate mitigation and adaptation projects for the U.S. Government. Before that, she spent 16 years in the UK, working for Historic England and English Heritage in research, urban planning, and heritage protection.
Jonathan S. Bell, PhD
Vice President of Programs, World Monuments Fund
Dr. Jonathan S. Bell came to World Monuments Fund from National Geographic Society, where he oversaw a large portfolio of projects that included archaeological research and cultural heritage. Over the course of his career, he worked with the Getty Conservation Institute on World Heritage Sites in China and Egypt, evaluated cultural site management from Kazakhstan to Colombia, and oversaw strategic planning for largescale flood infrastructure for the County of Los Angeles. Dr. Bell serves on multiple ICOMOS scientific committees as an expert member and sits on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Architectural Conservation. He holds a BA from Harvard University, a DEA from the Sorbonne, an MSc in Historic Preservation from Columbia University, and a PhD in Urban Planning from UCLA.
Bénédicte de Montlaur
President and CEO, World Monuments Fund
Bénédicte de Montlaur is President and Chief Executive Officer of World Monuments Fund (WMF), the world’s foremost private organization dedicated to saving extraordinary places while empowering the communities around them. She is responsible for defining WMF’s strategic vision, currently implementing that vision in more than 30 countries around the world and leading a team that spans the globe. Her background mixes culture and the arts, politics, international diplomacy and human rights. Prior to joining WMF, Montlaur spent two decades working across three continents as a senior diplomat at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact worldsummit@wmf.org.