UNESCO sites in Illinois safe amid U.S. withdrawal
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Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site in Collinsville. Photo: Daniel Acker for The Washington Post via Getty Images
President Trump's decision to withdraw from UNESCO by the end of next year will not affect U.S. participation in one of its key initiatives.
The big picture: The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization honors natural and cultural sites across the globe that must be preserved due to their significance to history and humanity. It has identified more than 1,200 sites for the World Heritage List, including three in Illinois.
Driving the news: The Trump administration announced last week that the U.S. was pulling out of the organization because it "supports woke, divisive cultural and social causes that are totally out-of-step with the commonsense policies that Americans voted for in November," White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement.
Flashback: Trump also pulled the U.S. out of UNESCO in 2017, citing anti-Israel bias, but President Biden had the country rejoin in 2023.
State of play: The U.S. will no longer pay dues. UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay said the organization had financially prepared for the U.S. withdrawal.
- The U.S. remains a member of the World Heritage Convention, and it will continue to preserve and promote the 26 U.S. sites included on the list, an UNESCO spokesperson told Axios.
- "Even during previous UNESCO withdrawals in 1984 and 2017, the United States continued to nominate and support World Heritage inscriptions," Barbara Gordon of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy told Axios.
- Eight U.S. Wright properties are included on the World Heritage List.
Yes, but: "While UNESCO does not provide direct funding to the sites that comprise 'The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright,' several U.S. agencies that do support public Wright sites have experienced severe cuts," Gordon said.
- She added, "These funding reductions pose a serious risk to the continued stewardship, preservation, and interpretation of Wright's architectural legacy."
Zoom in: Illinois sites include one near St. Louis and two in the Chicago area.
- Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site in southern Illinois is the largest prehistoric Native American city north of Mexico. Occupied from 700 to 1400, the city grew to cover 4,000 acres and is dominated by the 100 foot-tall Monks Mound, the largest prehistoric earthen mound in the Americas.
- Unity Temple in Oak Park is one of the Wright designs included on the list, along with the Robie House in Hyde Park.
- A concrete, blocked structure with a flat roof, Unity Temple is considered "the greatest public building of the architect's Chicago years."
- The American Institute of Architects recognized the Robie House as one of the most significant structures of the 20th century.