[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 56 (Tuesday, March 24, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Pages 15627-15628]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2015-06663]


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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

National Park Service

[NPS-WASO-OIA-17652; PIN00IO14.XI0000]


Submission of U.S. Nomination to the World Heritage List

AGENCY: National Park Service, Interior.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The Department of the Interior is submitting a nomination to 
the World Heritage List for the ``Key Works of Modern Architecture by 
Frank Lloyd Wright,'' consisting of 10 separate properties, located in 
seven states: Unity Temple, Oak Park, Illinois; Frederick C. Robie 
House, Chicago, Illinois; Taliesin, Spring Green, Wisconsin; Hollyhock 
House, Los Angeles, California; Fallingwater, Mill Run, Pennsylvania; 
Herbert and Katherine Jacobs House, Madison, Wisconsin; Taliesin West, 
Scottsdale, Arizona; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, New York; 
Price Tower, Bartlesville, Oklahoma; and the Marin County Civic Center, 
San Rafael, California. This is the third notice required by the 
Department of the Interior's World Heritage Program regulations.

DATES: The World Heritage Committee will likely consider the nomination 
at its 40th annual session in mid-2016.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Stephen Morris, Chief, Office of 
International Affairs at 202-354-1803 or Jonathan Putnam, International 
Cooperation Specialist at 202-354-1809. Complete information about U.S. 
participation in the World Heritage Program and the process used to 
develop the U.S. World Heritage Tentative List is posted on the 
National Park Service, Office of International Affairs Web site at: 
http://www.nps.gov/oia/topics/worldheritage/worldheritage.htm.
    To request paper copies of documents discussed in this notice, 
please contact April Brooks, Office of International Affairs, National 
Park Service, 1201 Eye Street NW., (0050) Washington, DC 20005; Email: 
[email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This constitutes the official notice of the 
decision by the United States Department of the Interior to submit on 
behalf of the United States, a nomination to the World Heritage List 
for the ``Key Works of Modern Architecture by Frank Lloyd Wright,'' as 
enumerated in the Summary above, and it is a component of the Third 
Notice referred to in 36 CFR 73.7(j) of the World Heritage Program 
regulations (36 CFR part 73).
    The nomination is being submitted through the U.S. Department of 
State to the World Heritage Centre of the United Nations Educational, 
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for consideration by the 
World Heritage Committee, which will likely occur at the Committee's 
40th annual session in mid-2016.
    This serial nomination has been selected from the U.S. World 
Heritage Tentative List, where it was listed as ``Frank Lloyd Wright 
Buildings.'' The Tentative List consists of properties that appear to 
qualify for World Heritage status and which may be considered for 
nomination by the United States to the World Heritage List. The Frank 
Lloyd Wright Buildings nomination on the Tentative List was 
subsequently amended in July 2011 to add the Herbert and Katherine 
Jacobs House to the group. Although the S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc., 
Administration Building and Research Tower in Racine, Wisconsin, are 
also included on the Tentative List under ``Frank Lloyd Wright 
Buildings,'' they are not being nominated at this time, but may be in 
the future.
    The U.S. World Heritage Tentative List appeared in a Federal 
Register notice on December 14, 2010 (73 FR 77901-77903, December 14, 
2010), with a request for public comment on possible nominations from 
the then-13 properties on the Tentative List. A summary of the comments 
received, the Department of the Interior's responses to them and the 
Department's decision to request preparation of this nomination 
appeared in a subsequent Federal Register Notice published on July 14, 
2011 (76 FR 41517-41521). These are the First and Second Notices 
required by 36 CFR 73.7(c) and (f).
    In making the decision to submit this U.S. World Heritage 
nomination, pursuant to 36 CFR 73.7(h) and (i), the Department's 
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks 
evaluated the draft nomination and the recommendations of the Federal 
Interagency Panel for World Heritage. He determined that the property 
meets the prerequisites for nomination by the United States to the 
World Heritage List that are detailed in 36 CFR part 73. Each property 
is nationally significant, having been designated by the Department of 
the Interior as an individual National Historic Landmark. The owners of 
the properties have concurred in writing with the nomination, and the 
legal and other protections for each property are documented in the 
nomination. This nomination appears to meet two of the World Heritage 
criteria for cultural properties.
    The ``Key Works of Modern Architecture by Frank Lloyd Wright'' is 
nominated under World Heritage cultural criteria (i) and (ii), as 
provided in 36 CFR 73.9(b)(1), as containing many of the most iconic, 
fully realized, and innovative of the buildings designed by Wright 
(1867-1959). Located in seven states across the continental United 
States of America, they respond to more than fifty years of dramatic 
cultural and technological change with distinctive and highly original 
modern forms. Designed for a range of urban, suburban, and rural 
environments and for clients from all backgrounds and walks of life, 
these works, which include a variety of building types, embody a 
single-minded vision of architecture as space created for human use, 
rich in emotion and sensitive to their surroundings. These masterworks, 
particular to Wright's vision, fused a variety of influences in a way 
that made a powerful impact on global architecture in the 20th century.
    The properties, both individually and as a group, also meet the 
World Heritage requirements for integrity and authenticity and have 
been determined to possess adequate legal and management mechanisms to 
ensure their conservation pursuant to 36 CFR 73.9(b)(2).
    The World Heritage List is an international list of cultural and 
natural properties nominated by the signatories to the World Heritage 
Convention (1972). The United States was the prime

[[Page 15628]]

architect of the Convention, an international treaty for the 
preservation of natural and cultural heritage sites of global 
significance proposed by President Richard M. Nixon in 1972, and the 
U.S. was the first nation to ratify it. The World Heritage Committee, 
composed of representatives of 21 nations elected as the governing body 
of the World Heritage Convention, makes the final decisions on which 
nominations to accept for inclusion on the World Heritage List at its 
annual meeting each summer. The United States has served four terms on 
the World Heritage Committee, but is not currently a member.
    There are 1,007 World Heritage sites in 161 of the 191 signatory 
countries. The United States has 22 sites inscribed on the World 
Heritage List.
    U.S. participation and the role of the Department of the Interior 
are authorized by Section 401 of Title IV of the Historic Preservation 
Act Amendments of 1980, (now codified at 54 U.S.C. 307101), and 
conducted by the Department through the National Park Service in 
accordance with the regulations at 36 CFR part 73 which implement the 
Convention pursuant to this law. The Department of the Interior has the 
lead role for the U.S. Government in the implementation of the 
Convention; the National Park Service serves as the principal technical 
agency within the Department for World Heritage matters and manages all 
or parts of 19 of the 22 U.S. World Heritage Sites.
    The World Heritage Committee's Operational Guidelines require 
participating nations to provide tentative lists, which aid in 
evaluating properties for the World Heritage List on a comparative 
international basis and help the Committee to schedule its work. The 
current U.S. Tentative List was transmitted to the UNESCO World 
Heritage Centre on January 24, 2008.
    Neither inclusion in the Tentative List nor inscription as a World 
Heritage Site imposes legal restrictions on owners or neighbors of 
sites, nor does it give the United Nations any management authority or 
ownership rights in U.S. World Heritage Sites, which continue to be 
subject only to U.S. federal and local laws, as applicable.

    Dated: March 3, 2015.
Michael J. Bean,
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks.
[FR Doc. 2015-06663 Filed 3-23-15; 8:45 am]
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