World Monuments Fund to reconstruct dome of Teacher's House in Kyiv
The World Monuments Fund (WMF), which is dedicated to the preservation of cultural heritage, has announced a list of its projects for 2024. This year, the organisation plans to focus on reconstructing Ukraine due to Russia's full-scale invasion, as well as on the aftermath of the earthquakes that took place in Türkiye in 2023.
Source: Artnet
Details: The Ministry of Culture of Ukraine reported that the Russians have damaged 872 cultural heritage sites since the start of their full-scale war against Ukraine in 2022. The WMF stated that it would restore the glass dome of the Teacher's House in Kyiv. The foundation has already installed a coating to protect the structure against water damage and will now work on replacing the glass.
Kateryna Honcharova, WMF's Ukrainian Heritage Crisis Specialist, said that the Teacher's House "has become an important landmark in the capital that symbolises the concept of modern Ukrainian statehood."
The building was used by the Ukrainian Central Rada as the first parliamentary building of the Ukrainian Republic in 1917. In that year the Ukrainian people, led by Mykhailo Hrushevskyi, created a revolutionary parliament that led the national movement. In the Teacher's House, the establishment of the Ukrainian People's Republic was proclaimed, and the Fourth Universal Declaration of Independence of Ukraine was adopted on the night of 24-25 January 1918.
The Kyiv City Teacher's House houses the Museum of the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917-1921 and the Pedagogical Museum of Ukraine.
The building’s glass dome was destroyed by a blast wave in October 2022, during a large-scale Russian missile attack.
The World Monuments Fund will also provide assistance to reconstruct two historic buildings in the city of Antakya in Türkiye: the Antioch Greek Orthodox Church of St Peter and the Antioch Synagogue. Busse Ceren Gül, the WMF architect in Türkiye, said that the monuments were completely destroyed in the February 2023 earthquake.
All of the projects of the World Monuments Fund are made possible in part by the US Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation and the US Mission to Ukraine and Türkiye. There are also plans to put US$15 million towards climate crisis mitigation efforts. In particular, the organisation's efforts will be directed towards restoring historically significant water collection systems in India, expanding access to reliable water sources in the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal, and rehabilitating traditional dams and reservoirs in the Andes of Peru.
Recovery from Russian attacks
The country is gradually recovering from the damage caused by Russia on 10 October 2022. A missile fell on a playground near the Khanenko Museum building in Kyiv during the large-scale attack. The blast wave smashed windows and streetlights.
In addition to the Khanenko Museum, the following cultural and educational facilities located in the centre of Kyiv were also damaged that day:
- Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (Red University Building and Institute of Philology building);
- Maksymovych Scientific Library;
- National Museum of Natural History of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine;
- Institute of Literature of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine;
- Institute of Archaeography of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine;
- National Philharmonic;
- The Pedagogical Museum of Ukraine and the Museum of the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917-1921.
Since then, most of the institutions have been able to replace the damaged windows and resume operations. For example, the Khanenko Museum has opened an exhibition called With Gold, Colour and Light. It is dedicated to the 175th anniversary of the artist Wilhelm Kotarbiński. This is the first project since the start of the full-scale invasion to showcase part of the museum's collection.
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