Establishment and Activity
The National Institution – National Center for Conservation – Skopje is a professional institution in the field of culture, with the status of a parent institution, established to carry out the activity of protecting cultural monuments. It was established by a Decree of the Government of the Republic of Macedonia on March 4, 1949, as the Central Office for the Protection of Cultural Monuments and Natural Heritage, based in Skopje, and has had its current name since 1960. On May 14, 2004, it was re-registered as a National Institution – Republican Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments Skopje.
The NI-RIPCM unifies the performance of three groups of functions: the function of the civil registry office, the function of the competent office for the area of 34 out of 84 municipalities in the Republic where local offices have not been established, and the functions of the office for the conservation and restoration of cultural monuments.
As a parent institution, NI-RIPCM has the following competencies: to advance the work methodology in the field of protection and issue professional guidelines; to supervise the local institutes (Skopje, Ohrid, Bitola, Prilep, Shtip, and Strumica), coordinate their work and provide them with expert assistance; to supervise the conservation-restoration works of other institutions for the protection of cultural monuments, to take care of the professional development of personnel in the field of cultural monument protection in the Republic of Macedonia, etc.
As a competent institution for the protection of cultural monuments in the municipalities where local institutions have not been established, NI-RIPCM performs the following functions:
1. Registry functions: maintains registers; conducts expert control of conservation projects carried out by national protection institutions; supervises conservation works for immediate protection by national protection institutions; coordinates the work of protection institutions and provides them with professional assistance; takes care of the promotion of the activity; takes care of the training of professional staff; submits proposals and gives expert opinions; operates a central laboratory for physical and chemical analyses; operates a central information service; performs other functions.
2. Professional protection work of exceptional importance: maintains basic records; studies, researches, and uses scientific methods to address protection issues; prepares expert reports for valorisation and reassessment; creates protective preservation bases; conducts archaeological research in objects that are subject to conservation; conducts conservation research and other research work; creates conservation projects; conducts expert control of conservation projects carried out by other authorized legal and physical persons; performs and organizes conservation, restoration, and other protection works, immediate arrangement, and presentation; conducts conservation supervision and other expert supervision over the implementation of protective measures; performs professional expertise and damage assessment; provides professional assistance; publishes and promotes the institution’s work; marks immovable property; prepares documentation.
NI-RIPCM maintains the central register for immovable cultural monuments and collects, organizes, stores, and issues documentation for cultural heritage through a special INDOC service. The Institute also holds authority over core, administrative, and other public authorizations.
As an integral part of its core activity, NI-RIPCM publishes professional and scientific-popular publications on cultural monuments and their protection through the “Cultural and Historical Heritage of the Republic of Macedonia” edition, as well as popularizes and presents monumental heritage and has rich international cooperation.
IN-ERMMK maintains central registers for immovable cultural monuments and performs the collection, organization, storage, and issuance of documentation for cultural heritage through a special INDOK service. The Institute is also responsible for core, administrative, and other public authorizations.
Based on its legally established activities and competencies, NI-RIPCM has a professional potential from various specialties and fields. NI-RIPCM also has experts in:
• Conservation and restoration of ancient, classical, and medieval archaeology;
• Conservation and restoration of sacred and profane architecture;
• Conservation and restoration of icons, frescoes, mosaics, wood carvings, stone and wood plastic, and oil painting techniques;
• Physical-chemical, biochemical research, and analyses.
Many professional conservators have enhanced their knowledge through specialization at: the International Center for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) in Rome, Italy; conservation of icons in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and Kyiv.
NI-RIPCM, with financial assistance from the EU and the PHARE Culture Development Program, has a modern conservation-chemical laboratory, the only one of its kind in the Balkans, which enables:
• Detection of damage causes, i.e., measurement of physical parameters in which the monument exists (temperature, humidity, lighting);
• Identification of painting and construction materials from which the monument is made and diagnosis of the changes and destructions that have occurred;
• Enabling the physical process of conservation through the execution of complex conservation tasks (iconography layering, removal of overlays, lacquer cleaning) and preparation of documentation for the entire process.
The laboratory is equipped with instruments that enable the most optimal climatic conditions, suitable for the conditions in which the cultural monuments have existed, and enables the establishment of NI-RIPCM among the leading institutes for the protection of cultural monuments, according to the conservation staff it possesses and the standard of equipment it owns.
Special Achievements:
• Registration of 24,350 icons, 4,200 archaeological sites, 1,760 churches and monasteries, 1,200 ancient architectural objects, and over 400 other objects and sites from various types and periods;
• Valorisation of 1,300 places of cultural-historical significance;
• Conservation-restoration works on architecture in more than 200 immovable cultural monuments, particularly in churches: St. Sophia – Ohrid, the Monastery of St. John Bigorski – Rostusha, St. George – Kurbinovo village, St. George – Staro Nagoričane village, Lesnovo Monastery – Lesnovo village, Polosh Monastery, Monastery of St. Panteleimon – Gorno Nerezi village, Vardar Hill – Gevgelija, Stobi – Gradskë, etc.;
• Reconstruction of the church in the Podlastva Monastery near Budva – Montenegro, etc.;
• Conservation of icons from the Ohrid Icon Gallery, the Struga Icon Collection from the Museum of Macedonia, etc.;
• Archaeological research and conservation of mosaics in Stobi, Bargala, etc.;
• Conservation of wood carvings in the royal palace in Warsaw – Poland, relocation of frescoes from the Piva Monastery – Montenegro;
• Exhibitions of Macedonian cultural heritage in Paris, London, Tokyo, Vatican, Belgium, Sweden, etc.;
• Publication of editions through the “Cultural and Historical Heritage of the Republic of North Macedonia.”
