World Monuments Fund

The original medieval cathedral of St. Michael was built between the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but nearly five hundred years later, it was destroyed during the Coventry Blitz in nineteen forty.

Inspections have shown that the ruins are under threat from issues like water damage and crumbling masonry, with the World Monument Fund placing them on their at-risk register.

Cathedral lead-leaders said the ruins were never designed to be exposed to the elements, and that both the remains and the spire were beginning to deteriorate.

More than two hundred thousand people visit the site each year, and the Building Hope initiative has been set up to raise donations to help preserve it.

We could just do a patch-up job, but we decided we don't want to do that.

We want to future-proof the ruins for the coming generations.

She added, "Do we talk to UNESCO about getting this site listed? We're having some interesting conversations with the World Monument Fund because the Coventry Cathedral and its ruins are a building of that significance, and it's really important that we recognize that and take good care of it for the future." Specialist investigations need to be carried out first before options can be considered for further preservation work.

The Building Hope initiative is also exploring ways to create a world-class visitor experience.

We are unique.

Okay? Recently, the World Monuments Fund named New Orleans on their inaugural irreplaceable American list, selecting New Orleans as the only American city that is irreplaceable because of our one-of-a-kind traditions, neighborhoods, and our irreplaceable culture.

New York was not on that list.

San Francisco, for all their culture, was not on that list.

It went on the World Monuments Watch in 2006.

And the World Monuments Fund pulled together Spain's Ministry of Culture, the regional government of Castilla y León, and local institutions to stabilize it.

So it's no longer delivering water, but it's still being maintained, just for a different reason.

Which is its own kind of survival.

$4 million.

funded by the World Monuments Fund, 1.3 million from Mika Ertegun, and a significant sum from King Abdullah II of Jordan.

A Jordanian monarch paying to fix a tomb in Israeli-controlled Jerusalem

because the six churches couldn't sign off.

So when we came to making the pavilion, it kind of felt natural to start with that.

And the process of it is quite varied, you know, in places like Syria and Iraq, we do have kind of watchdogs and UNESCO and World Monuments Fund, all these different sort of NGOs that are tracking what is being destroyed.

But then places like Gaza and the West Bank, where you don't really have access to the place, you know, a lot of the research came from social media, people there who are posting or press outlets that have access to it.

it's quite varied and it's always like something you need to verify from different sources.

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And the World Monuments Fund's inaugural Irreplaceable America list shows the whole city of New Orleans as a culturally integral entity worth recognizing and preserving.

We talked with a professor who got New Orleans on that list.

But first...

Happy to be here.

So this Irreplaceable America list, zooming out for a second first, what exactly is it recognizing and what made New Orleans a contender?

So the World Monuments Fund put out a call.

This is their first list of this kind.