Interview with Mathilde Augé, Executive Director of WMF France

The World Monument Fund is an international organisation dedicated to safeguarding architecture and heritage. It had an affiliate office in France that took part in numerous restoration projects throughout the country. After closing its office in 2017, it is returning to Paris in 2023. Interview with Mathilde Augé Executive Director of WMF France (ill.1).

Can you tell us about your career path?

After a preparatory class, I entered the École Normale Supérieure and chose to study art history. I became interested in artistic relations between Paris and Istanbul after the Second World War. Then I decided to go to business school and entered HEC. Once I’d finished my studies, I started working for various publishing houses, before joining the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) in New York. For six years, I organised conferences, devised a digital strategy for cultural programming, and set up temporary exhibitions on a wide variety of subjects related to French culture, the last of which was devoted to Jean-Jacques Sempé. I joined the World Monument Fund on 1 April this year and am now back in France. Our offices are currently housed at the Sauvegarde de l’art français, in the ninth arrondissement of Paris, and I’m lucky enough to be working under a masterpiece by Simon Vouet, Aurore et Céphale.

Can you explain why the WMF’s Paris office, which opened in 1989, closed in 2017 and why the decision was taken to reopen it in 2023?

The closure of the office in 2017 came at a time of global reorganisation of the organisation, following a change in management and in a more complicated economic context. Nevertheless, France plays an essential role in the world of heritage, so it was difficult for the WMF not to have an office in Paris. First of all, it is a country with a particularly rich heritage, for which we have worked by funding around…