Celebrating Monte Albán

On Tuesday night, World Monuments Fund brought friends and supporters together for a celebratory evening to raise funds and awareness for quake-damaged Monte Albán Archaeological Site in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Guests listened to mariachi music and enjoyed cocktails and tacos at Tacombi in New York City while they learned more about efforts to restore the damaged sixth-century Zapotec complex, inscribed as a World Heritage Site since 1987.

The evening culminated with an exciting announcement – more than $1 million in funds will support disaster response and restoration efforts in partnership with the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) at Monte Albán beginning in July. The work is made possible by leadership gifts from American Express, Roberto Hernández Ramírez and Claudia Madrazo de Hernández, and The Robert W. Wilson Charitable Trust, and additional generous donations from Charities Aid Foundation of Canada and Fundación Mary Street Jenkins.

“As we work beside INAH to conserve the damaged site, we will be building sustainable conservation capacity that places like Monte Alban can take to reduce earthquake damage in the future,” said Joshua David, President & CEO, World Monuments Fund.

Special guest Ambassador Diego Gómez Pickering, Consul General of Mexico in New York, added that the new project is also a symbol of the power of working across borders. “With great loss and devastation, we have a chance to work together to show the world that the US and Mexico are much more than what we read on the news.”

Fifteen structures within Monte Albán and the northern section of Atzompa were affected by a devastating September 2017 earthquake, with five showing severe damage that required emergency structural shoring to prevent collapse. The site was included on the 2018 World Monuments Watch as part of the Disaster Sites of the Caribbean, the Gulf, and Mexico, with the goal of mobilizing heritage conservation efforts in the aftermath of a string of hurricanes and earthquakes.