ABSTRACT
The above statement, made by ICOMOS at the early stage of the implementation of the World Heritage Convention, summarizes well some of the main ideas linked to the concept of World Heritage over the years. World Heritage has been, and continues to be, about the themes of growing awareness and fear concerning the disappearance of humankind’s common heritage, selection and assigning value, universalism versus nationalism and particularism, and the dominant Western eye. The statement also reveals how ICOMOS, right from the beginning, considered that outstanding universal value could be discovered beyond the established canons of architecture, if only the methods of modern science were employed.
