Following the inclusion of Belfast’s Assembly Rooms on the 2025 World Monuments Watch, WMF Britain celebrates Belfast City Council’s commitment to the Rooms as a major step forward in ‘safeguarding this significant historic asset and reimagining its future at the heart of the city of Belfast’.
WMF Britain writes:
World Monuments Fund (WMF) celebrates Belfast City Council’s purchase of the Assembly Rooms, one of the city’s oldest civic buildings. The Council’s acquisition marks a major step forward in safeguarding this long-vacant significant historic asset and reimagining its future at the heart of the city of Belfast. Earlier this year, the Assembly Rooms was selected for inclusion on the 2025 World Monuments Watch, a biannual global program that spotlights 25 heritage sites of extraordinary significance facing urgent challenges, with the aim of raising awareness, mobilizing resources, and implementing conservation initiatives.?This is the first time in 15 years that Northern Ireland has had a successful nomination to the Watch. The Assembly Rooms were selected alongside the Chapel of the Sorbonne in Paris, France and Historic City of Antakya in Türkiye.
WMF commends the dedicated efforts of the Assembly Rooms Alliance, alongside individuals who have highlighted the cultural and historic significance of the building. Their sustained advocacy, including the application for WMF’s Watch programme in the past two years, has played a vital role in raising awareness of the significance of the building.
Over the past nine months, WMF has supported the advocacy campaign to save the building, engaging with key stakeholders including Belfast City Council at a dedicated event organized by WMF in Clifton House, and raising awareness through targeted outreach focused on local Councillors and heritage professionals.?WMF advocates for a cultural use that reflects the site’s historic significance and sees the Assembly Rooms as a potential catalyst for wider regeneration across the Tribecca area.
WMF thanks Belfast City Councillors, whose decision has safeguarded the Assembly Rooms and Braddell’s Building, both Grade B1 listed. As part of the next steps, we would welcome working with the Council to support the phased conservation and reactivation of the Assembly Rooms. WMF remains committed to working with the Council and other stakeholders to develop a sustainable and viable future use of the building, providing international visibility, supporting fundraising efforts, and contributing conservation expertise.
Magnus von Wistinghausen, Executive Director, World Monuments Fund in Britain [said] ‘We welcome the Council’s landmark purchase and look forward to supporting the next phase of planning for the Assembly Rooms’ future. Since the site’s inclusion on the Watch earlier this year, WMF has worked closely with local stakeholders to advocate for the return of the Assembly Rooms to public ownership. This campaign exemplifies WMF’s approach – placing an international spotlight on local heritage priorities. While the campaign has spanned many years, we are proud to have contributed in part to this successful outcome. The real credit, however, belongs to the dedicated local advocates and Councillors who have made saving this building their mission.’
The Assembly Rooms is a key witness to Belfast’s mercantile and political evolution. Designed by architect Robert Taylor and remodeled by Charles Lanyon, who designed Queen’s University, it was as a space for social gatherings and commercial exchange. In 1786, a proposal to establish a Belfast-based company trading in enslaved Africans was debated and defeated in the Assembly Rooms. It hosted the 1792 Belfast Harp Festival, a landmark event in the preservation of Irish harp music. From the 19th century until 2000s it was a bank but fell into disuse in recent decades.
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