BS Austria host CPP talks

Blue Shield Austria hosted two roundtables at the 27th Cultural Heritage and News Technologies Conference that took place from 10-12 November in Vienna and was organized by the CHNT-ICOMOS Austria association and the City of Vienna. Anna Puhr, BSA Deputy General-Secretary and Blue Shield’s EU representative for Digital Cultural Heritage, organized the roundtable “A European Data Space for Cultural Heritage: Closing the Gap” in order to open a discussion about the EU’s Recommendation of such a common data space. Amongst others, speakers came from Austria, Germany and the Netherlands presenting the Heritage Information System of the Austrian Federal Monuments Authority, the merge of GIS and BIM for Architectural Heritage, an integrated data framework for sustainable heritage management in dynamic landscapes as well as the ICOMOS Action Group ECHO. BSA Vice-President Friedrich Schipper organized the roundtable “Cultural Property Protection: Currents in Law and Law Enforcement” highlighting the role of police in CPP, the protection of cultural goods in Austria and the role of customs in CPP.

Blue Shield Austria in cooperation with the Roerich Pact Austria organized the lecture evening “PAX CULTURA” on cultural heritage protection in times of crisis which took place on 7 December in eastern Austria. General-Secretary Leylya Strobl gave insights at the current, devastating destruction of cultural property in the war against Ukraine and highlighted the importance of precautionary measures. The Austrian expertise in the protection of cultural property as well as the work of the Austrian Committee was presented by Vice-President Peter Harold, President Karl Habsburg-Lothringen highlighted the international perspective and talked about the Blue Shield mission in Lebanon after the Beirut port explosion. This marked the start of a focus on awareness activities in the federal states.