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Ensenada and San Diego Host First ICOMOS Symposium of the Americas
By Maria E Curry
January/February 2026
 Guadalupe Zepeda, president of Mexico ICOMOS (left), took turns with Douglas Comer, U.S. ICOMOS president, in reading the Ensenada-San Diego Charter, or Carta de Ensenada-San Diego, a groundbreaking agreement to advance cultural and historic preservation in North and South America that was produced during the First ICOMOS Symposium of the Americas in November 2025. Photo by Mónica Peraza. |
 Symposium keynote speaker Donovan Rypkema of PlaceEconomics answered questions about his research on how historic preservation benefits local economies. Reporters interviewed him in Ensenada and San Diego. Courtesy Ciudad Tijuana |
 New ICOMOS member and Tijuana businessman Gabriel Gamboa (left) and Maria Curry dined at the famous Caesar’s restaurant in Tijuana with Rodney Swink of North Carolina, after sessions of the ICOMOS Symposium that took place on both sides of the border. Courtesy Maria Curry |
ICOMOS, the International Council on Monuments and Sites and an advisory body to UNESCO, recently made history with the First Regional Scientific Symposium of the Americas: Shared Heritage Beyond Borders, which was held in Ensenada, Baja California, and San Diego in November 2025.
Organized by the ICOMOS national committees of Mexico, the United States, and Colombia, along with the Baja California state government (where I work for the secretary of culture), the conference included 60 in-person and virtual presentations.
Participants also produced a milestone agreement of North and South American cooperation for cultural and natural heritage preservation called the Ensenada-San Diego Charter/Carta de Ensenada-San Diego. Guadalupe Zepeda and Douglas Comer, the Mexican and U.S. presidents of ICOMOS, respectively, unveiled the charter at the Chicano Park Museum and Cultural Center in San Diego. The leaders also recognized the historical and archaeological connections that unite the Americas and emphasized the need to strengthen international collaboration on heritage preservation and joint research. They urged nations to integrate shared memories into public policies.
Keynote speakers delivered international perspectives. Among them was Donovan Rypkema, a U.S. cultural heritage economist who discussed the relationship between economics and preservation in reviving historic downtowns and making them self-sustainable. (His firm, PlaceEconomics, is studying the economic impact of historic preservation in San Diego.) Juan Luis Isaza Londoño, president of ICOMOS Colombia, emphasized the cultural heritage shared among nations with World Heritage sites, and Leonardo Castriota Barci, regional vice-president for ICOMOS in the Americas, presented a novel approach to preserving national heritage based on the regulatory protection frameworks of different countries.
ICOMOS national committee members from an impressive number of countries—Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Uruguay, and the United States, and, specifically, researchers from Baja California and San Diego—delivered lectures on a variety of subjects. These included “Colonialism in the Americas: Evolving Perspectives on a Shared Heritage,” “Opportunity and Degradation in Guadalupe Valley [Baja California wine country],” and urban adaptation to climate change in Tegucigalpa, Honduras’s historic capital.
Save Our Heritage Organisation (SOHO), like the Chicano Park Museum, was a symposium organizing partner. SOHO sent a proclamation, which I, a longtime SOHO member, read to the assembled group. SOHO honored ICOMOS on its 60th anniversary of preservation leadership, celebrated the historic symposium and all who made it possible, and pledged continued partnership in advancing heritage preservation, understanding, and cooperation across the Americas.
The ICOMOS presidents from Colombia, Mexico, and the U.S. presided over the symposium in Ensenada’s Centro Estatal de las Artes (CEART). In another indication of the symposium’s importance, Alma Delia Abrego, Baja California secretary of culture, and Jaime Velez, who represented the federal director of the National Institute of Anthropology and History, co-presided.
The symposium was so successful and planted so many viable seeds that more international presentations and cross-border collaborations are being planned in several countries. A smaller conference celebrating ICOMOS’s Day of the Monument is slated for April 18, 2026 and another event to mark Baja California’s Day of Cultural and Natural Heritage is in the works.
The symposium concluded with visits to important cultural sites in San Diego. The group enjoyed a tour of the vibrant, socially relevant murals of Chicano Park and the Chicano Park Museum led by Josephine Talamantez, a renowned organizer of both entities; a visit to the iconic Hotel del Coronado, where preservation architect and SOHO member David Marshall explained major, recently completed restoration work; and a guided tour of the Marston House Museum & Gardens, where SOHO docents shared the 1905 home and legacy of the George W. Marston family.
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