ISCCL History

The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) was established in 1965, in response to the need for an international body in association with the Venice Charter (1964). It was not until 1971 that the ISCCL was first established with an initial focus on gardens as heritage sites.

In the early years the ISCCL was called the International Committee on Gardens and Historic Sites. Its first president, René Pechère, was a widely respected landscape architect from Belgium, concerned with the protection and management of historic gardens within the larger field of heritage conservation.

The Committee is well known for its work on the ICOMOS Florence Charter on Historic Gardens (1982), which at the time was innovative for the recognition of the dynamic plant assemblages in historic gardens as a form of ‘monument’.   However, the broadening of focus and the name of the Committee to cultural landscapes in 1999 reflected a changing understanding of the role of landscapes in culture and heritage, and as the link between humans and nature.

Today, cultural landscapes are defined in the Operational Guidelines (UNESCO 2019) as cultural properties that represent the combined works of nature and of people. “Cultural landscapes are cultural properties and represent the “combined works of nature and of man” designated in Article 1 of the [World Heritage] Convention. They are illustrative of the evolution of human society and settlement over time, under the influence of the physical constraints and/or opportunities presented by their natural environment and of successive social, economic and cultural forces, both external and internal.” (WHOG, Annex 3, 47, 2019)

Cultural landscapes are increasingly understood as complex systems where cultural relationships are developed within an ecological context, recognizing the mutual and reciprocal influence of culture and nature. Currently, three main categories of cultural landscapes are recognized:

• designed landscapes created intentionally by people;
• organically evolved landscapes, that may be
  • a relict or fossil landscape, where evolution of the landscape came to an end while its distinguishing features visible in material form; or
  • a continuing landscape, where the cultural landscape today is a living place with roles in contemporary society, associated with traditions, evolution is still in progress and significant material evidence is present
• associative cultural landscapes that have “powerful religious, artistic or cultural associations of the natural element rather than material cultural evidence, which may be insignificant or even absent” while the material evidence of evolution is exhibited. (WHOG, Annex 3, 10 (iii), 2019)