Secretary-general of IFC 1989 – 2009
It is with great sadness that we learned that the Dutch architect Carlos Scheltema died in mid-December 2023 at the age of 94. He was a long-time member of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Festungsforschung (DGF) and took part in numerous DGF conferences together with his wife Elisabeth, also an architect (who died in 2018). A passionate fortress researcher, he focused particularly on researching and renovating the fortress town of Naarden, but also on other defense fortifications in the Netherlands such as the “Stelling van Amsterdam”, which has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1996. He published numerous specialist publications on these topics.
Carlos was one of the pillars of ICOMOS in the Netherlands and, as a rapporteur, one of the experts responsible for the inclusion of the network of Vauban sites on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2007. In 2013 he was made an honorary citizen of the Vauban cities of Villefranche de Conflent and Mont-Louis in France and received many other high honors, including being a Knight of the Dutch Order of Merit of Orange-Nassau. In 2014 he was appointed an honorary member of ICOMOS International by the General Assembly. This title is awarded to people “who have made outstanding contributions to the cause of preserving, restoring and enhancing monuments, sites and historical ensembles.” As a member of many organizations and associations such as the Stichting Menno van Coehoorn, the Fortress Study Group and the Association Vauban, he always had an international vision of fortress research in mind.
It is not surprising that he was one of the founding fathers and spiritus rector of the International Fortress Council (IFC), founded in The Hague in 1989, and served as its long-standing Secretary General. The ambitious “Multilingual Fortification Dictionary” (MFD) project was also created on his initiative.