WHITRAP is sad to announce the sudden demise of Enrico Fontanari, who passed away on July 6th 2020 at the age of 67 in Venice. He was UNESCO Chair holder on Heritage and Urban Regeneration and responsible of international relations at IUAV, Venice. He regularly visited China and developed partnerships with Tongji University CAUP, and with Southeast University, Nanjing.

In 2017, he established a strategic cooperation with WITHRAP Shanghai — focusing on an urban design approach in heritage areas from the perspective of the UNESCO HUL Recommendation — that brought Italian students at our Institute for fieldwork research.

He will be sorely missed by all of us.