International Scientific Conference | Budapest – Pécs (Hungary), May 22-28, 2004
Several days in May, 1964 are red letter days in the history of monument protection. Those days mark the Second Congress of Architects and Specialists of Historic Buildings held in Venice, on the Isle of San Giorgio.
A resolution was also adopted at this Congress, providing the creation of ICOMOS, and more importantly, the International Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites, i.e. the Venice Charter.

Since then, the Venice Charter has become the most important set of principles and guidelines of monument restoration. Although these guidelines have raised many discussions, experts of monument protection world-wide have been faithful to them. International documents created since then, like the Charter of Historic Gardens, the Charter of Historic Towns, the Nara Document on Authenticity or the Cracow 2000 Charter and others, all are based on the Venice Charter either by completing or specifying it.

The Hungarian National Committee of ICOMOS, together with the City of Pécs, the local government of Baranya County, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and the National Office of Cultural Heritage, is organising an international conference between May 22 and 28, 2004, almost on the same dates the Conference in Venice took place 40 years earlier. Its goals are to honour the predecessors and their work and to re-evaluate the Venice Charter in the light of the challenges monument restoration is facing in the 21st century and to seek answers to questions architects and specialists were facing during these four decades.

The Conference will start in Budapest and end in the city of Pécs, a vibrant cultural centre in the South of Hungary. Both cities are sites of the World’s Cultural Heritage, thus offering a promising background to the Conference.
The official languages of the Conference are English, French and Hungarian with simultaneous translation.

All related information is included in the registration form attached. You can download the registration form from the Internet at: www.icomos.hu.