The World Monuments Fund (WMF) has released the 2014 World Monuments Watch, its biennial list of cultural heritage sites at risk of damage or loss. This year’s list includes 67 sites in 41 countries, shortlisted from 248 nominations. The type and scale of selections are equally expansive; they range from all of Syria to the gas lamps of Berlin.
Despite such breadth, WMF president Bonnie Burnham, in introducing the 2014 class at a Tuesday press conference in Manhattan, said that the underlying causes of vulnerability are consistent. Catastrophe and conflict repeatedly propel significant places to recognition, for example, and Burnham cited escalating violence in Syria for its inclusion in the 2014 Watch. The country was chosen in its entirety because dislocation from fragile symbolic sites like Aleppo has also caused destruction and looting of historic assets farther afield.
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