Conservation & Preservation

A Getty lifeline for classical mosaics in the Middle East and North Africa

As the Getty winds down its decade-long Mosaikon project, it leaves behind a legacy of expertise in a region threatened by looting and political unrest

Microsoft aims to harness AI for heritage projects

From languages to historic artefacts, the company will use technology to preserve and celebrate traditional cultures

Moscow Kremlin Museums say ‘bravo!’ to restorers

State regalia, Russian icons and decorative pistols go on show in exhibition celebrating the hidden craft of conservation

Unesconews

In a first, Unesco gives Frank Lloyd Wright buildings World Heritage status

US architect's distinctive designs are among 29 designees recognised for their “outstanding value to humanity”

Dramatic speech in Baku challenges Unesco’s support for damaging Venice cruise ship decision

The non-governmental organisation Europa Nostra recommends that the World Heritage Committee put the lagoon city on the endangered list

Going undercover: Scotland's leaky Mackintosh treasure shielded by 197-tonne chainmail box

Hill House in Helensburgh has been covered to protect it from the rain while National Trust makes conservation plans

Venice comment

The Turkish shareholders in the port of Venice want to keep cruise ships coming—and the mayor supports them

The World Heritage Committee is meeting in Baku and intends to dodge declaring Venice endangered for the third time

Solid evidence that Venice's Mose mobile flood barriers have serious conservation faults

Repair work on Mose is estimated to take ten years, calling the operational date of 2021 into question

Aliph global protection fund announces 14 projects across multiple war zones

The Minaret of Jam in Afghanistan, Syria’s Raqqa Museum and Mosul libraries all safeguarded

Getty shores up Peruvian church in an earthquake zone

The preservation project could serve as a prototype for saving other earthen buildings

Conservators restore Africa’s first animated film in colour

Nigerien pioneer Moustapha Alassane’s stop-motion work Samba the Great is being screened in Bologna

A once-in-a-lifetime look behind Van Gogh’s Sunflowers

The Van Gogh Museum’s masterpiece has suffered from a 1960s restoration which involved the insertion of three long metal bolts

British Library shares conservation experts with Palestinian Museum

New partnership will preserve the Birzeit museum’s most ‘at-risk’ objects on paper

Quarries, quarrels and a lesbian affair: the life of sculptor Mary Spencer Watson

The Dorset farmhouse in which she lived with her father, the portrait painter George Spencer Watson, has been recently restored by the Landmark Trust

Conservation project channels thinking of Angkor’s original builders

World Monuments Fund completes restoration of the eastern half of Phnom Bakheng temple

Ugo Rondinone’s day-glo desert installation Seven Magic Mountains gets a fresh coat of paint

The popular public art work has been restored with the aim of keeping it Instagram-ready through 2021 or longer

Filmsnews

Victorians in pictures: British Film Institute digitises archive of over 500 early silent films

Conservation experts carefully cleaned the fragile and flammable nitrate film so each frame could be individually scanned

Leaderscomment

Comment | Cupid ‘outing’ in Vermeer painting is the right move

The uncovered figure changes the composition of Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window

Eileen Gray’s and Le Corbusier’s architectural gems reopen after extensive restoration

A Modernist villa and hut in the south of France feature wall paintings by Le Corbusier

Nazi site in Nuremberg to be preserved but not restored

German city launches €85m plan to prevent further decay of infamous rally grounds

Virtual reality tour offers glimpse of François Pinault’s long-awaited, grand Paris gallery

Exhibition at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice shows Tadao Ando’s designs for the Bourse de Commerce building

Guggenheim launches conservation fellowship with help from Russian billionaire Vladimir Potanin

Initiative aims to boost Russian expertise in rapidly developing field of preserving contemporary art

Hidden Cupid resurfaces in one of Vermeer’s best-known works after two and a half centuries

Laboratory tests revealed "sensational" discovery that the figure in Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window was overpainted decades after the artist’s death

Newly restored Hillsborough Castle brims with clues to its past at the heart of Irish politics

Georgian mansion, the Queen’s official residence in Northern Ireland, has reopened to the public

Notre Dame: experts explain why Macron's five-year restoration deadline is impossible

Complex conservation issues mean it could easily take a decade or more to rebuild the Medieval cathedral

Nancy Holt’s desert Sun Tunnels will be cleaned and repaired—but the bullet marks are staying

The artist considered the streaks left by gunfire to be part of the Land Art work's evolution

How to future-proof a work of art that will not be completed for 100 years

As Katie Paterson's sand castle project goes on tour, we look at how her Future Library is being made to outlive the artist

Does a Minnesota college own a portrait by Edvard Munch?

Scientific evidence points to St Olaf College’s Portrait of Eva Mudocci being the real deal, but scholars of the artist’s work are reserving judgement

The Getty Conservation Institute maps out a plan to preserve the Eames House

The Los Angeles Modernist home was designed and lived in by Charles and Ray Eames