Francesco Bandarin

On 12 December 2017, UNESCO and the World Tourism Organization signed the Muscat Declaration on Tourism and Culture: Fostering Sustainable Development. When properly managed, tourism can be a “means to promote inter-cultural dialogue, create employment opportunities, curb rural migration, and nurture a sense of pride among host communities”.

This orientation is also found in the first UNESCO Global Report on Culture for Sustainable Urban Development (“Culture: Urban Future”), released on 18 October 2016 during the Third United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III).

In 2014, he served as President of the Jury of the Venice Biennale of Architecture. In 2019 and 2020, he chaired the World Judges Panel for the Prix Versailles.

This led to the adoption of the Hangzhou Declaration: Placing Culture at the Heart of Sustainable Development Policies on 17 May 2013.

Francesco Bandarin also advocated for the conservation of urban heritage in a broader sense. That approach was enshrined by the Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape, adopted by the UNESCO General Conference on 10 November 2011. According to that text, UNESCO considers that, “in order to support the protection of natural and cultural heritage, emphasis needs to be put on the integration of historic urban area conservation, management and planning strategies into local development processes and urban planning, such as, contemporary architecture and infrastructure development, for which the application of a landscape approach would help maintain urban identity”.

Francesco Bandarin (born 26 December 1950) is an Italian architect. He was Director of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre from 2000 to 2010 and then Assistant Director-General of UNESCO for Culture from 2010 to 2018.