UNESCO

UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Its constitution was adopted in London on 16 November 1945, establishing international cooperation in education, science and culture as a means of supporting peace and human rights. Its work includes educational exchange, scientific cooperation, access to information and the protection of cultural and natural heritage. The World Heritage Convention of 1972 and the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of 2003 are among its principal instruments. Its governing structure comprises a General Conference, an Executive Board and a Secretariat. Marcel Breuer, Pier Luigi Nervi and Bernard Zehrfuss designed the headquarters that opened at the Place de Fontenoy in 1958: a Y-shaped block raised on piers, with a conference hall beside it whose folded concrete roof is Nervi's. That hall, and the smaller rooms around it, take concerts as well as debates. Orchestras come to Paris to play there, generally for occasions bound up with the organisation's own calendar of anniversaries and member-state weeks.