An Interview with Maria Llanos Martinez, ICOMOS Intern

Maria Llanos Martinez is the Trust's first International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) intern. Established in 1984, the International Exchange Program promotes an understanding of international preservation policies, methods, and techniques enabling interns to make professional contacts and form personal friendships that will ensure a dialogue between countries. ICOMOS interns are young professionals with advanced degrees in conservation, preservation, and architecture.

Martinez is from Albacete, Spain, and received her architecture and engineering degree from Madrid Polytechnical University and her master in monuments and landscape preservation from La Sapienza University of Rome. She also minored in Restoration Strategies, Structural Pathologies, Cultural Heritage Management, and Cultural Landscape Management. She has worked in architectural studios and offices in Spain and Italy. In Madrid, she worked on an apartment complex for young people, and she completed the interior design of a water company in Albacete. In Rome, her firm created a museum for a roman-medieval collection within a 1900s building and designed the exhibit for discovered ruins beneath San Paolo Fuori le Mura.

Susan West Montgomery, senior director of preservation resources in the Preservation Division, sat down with Martinez on August 8, 2013, to talk about the differences between preservation practice in Spain and in the U.S. Martinez also talks about what she has learned during her internship and how she hopes to apply these lessons when she returns home.

AUDIO CLIP
Click here to hear an audio clip of the interview.