It is not a figure that all cultural assets declared world heritage by UNESCO have. In fact, in Catalonia, Casa Batlló ---which obtained this recognition in 2005--- is the only work that has a specific person responsible for preserving and disseminating the values that have been recognized by the consensus of 195 countries. These are the nations that have ratified the 1972 World Heritage Convention, the community united to identify and safeguard the natural and cultural heritage considered the most important in the world. "Across the planet there are 1248 properties inscribed on the World Heritage list," says Amilcar Vargas. There are few things he doesn't know about this subject that elevates the most laudable creations to the podium. Works like the building Gaudí made on Barcelona's Passeig de Gràcia, a house to live in, Casa Batlló, where today what is experienced is the experience of thousands of people from all over the world walking through the work of a genius. Amilcar works to safeguard and enhance everything that grants the category of UNESCO recognition to Casa Batlló. He likes to observe how visitors, of all ages, admire the place they are in, discovering, at each step, different, original colors and shapes, and have the sensation of advancing within a painting, a story or a historical narrative. It is the impression of coexisting for a while with the exoticism and exclusivity of such an emblematic building. And to the question of what he believes people who tour this sensational building take away, he answers with one word: "inspiration." To begin with, few neglect the selfies to post on social media. They are very Instagrammable visits, as Vargas says, who also knows that visitors "take away emotions, moments of happiness." He also feels that way, happy to be where he is. He lives as a true privilege the fact of working in such an exceptional cultural environment in the world. He was born in the Mexican city of Veracruz, in 1980. Cultural assets interested him and he would go out looking for monuments. One day, in the historic center of Tlacotalpan, a city of three or four thousand inhabitants, not too far from where he lived, he saw a plaque in its central park that read World Heritage. "That was my moment of epiphany, and I was eighteen years old then," Amilcar comments. From then on, that young man took advantage of any holiday to drag his fellow boy scouts, the movement he had been with since he was eight, to visit monuments. He wanted to live the experience of getting to know cultural and world heritage, if possible, firsthand. Alone, with his backpack and hitchhiking, he also planned itineraries to go see those works that the world had decided had a cultural value that transcended borders. He was interested in heritage assets, but above all, in the people who live nearby, and how they live. With this interest, he approached places like Puebla and Oaxaca and so many other destinations where art and archaeology, and also sociology, made his curiosity feel very awake. Born in the Mexican city of Veracruz, Amilcar confesses that he felt a moment of epiphany in the historic center of Tlacotalpan, when he began to take an interest in heritage. © Mano Martinez He was so eager to learn more about all of it that, even though he had already started studying accounting, he told his mother he wanted to study archaeology. She, at first, told him no. She probably couldn't imagine any job advertisement saying: 'archaeologist wanted' but rather 'accountant wanted'. But then they reached an agreement: Amilcar would study archaeology if he also finished accounting. And so it was: he combined both. He graduated in archaeology at the age of twenty-seven. He first worked as an accountant for a few years, doing tax returns and audits, until one Thursday he quit and the following Monday he already had a job related to World Heritage. It was in El Tajín, a pre-Columbian archaeological zone in the city of Papantla, Veracruz. The site had been inscribed in 1992. He was commissioned to do the photographic documentation of the restoration process and a maintenance project for five months. It was his thesis director at the university who guided him to that job. Amilcar Vargas combined both careers, accounting and archaeology. © Shuko Kawase In El Tajín, he met an anthropologist who proposed he work with him in Mexico City, in the offices of the National Institute of Anthropology and History. There ---he says--- "I learned how heritage was managed from an office, how to make management plans, and plans for opening and signage for visits to archaeological sites." He always explains that accounting helped him a lot. "Now that I am a professor, I think that both archaeologists and those dedicated to conservation should learn accounting to know how to calculate the costs of mural painting or ceramic sculpture. Even a biologist, if they want to present a project, benefits from having knowledge of budgets. And in the day-to-day management of a site open to the public, you need management tools," explains Amilcar. In addition to conferences around the world, he teaches at the Sorbonne University in Paris, specifically, the subject of Governance and Tourism–Unesco World Heritage sites. He says that on his first trip to France he was treated so badly and felt so discriminated against because he didn't speak French, that he signed up for an intensive course to learn this language that he now speaks magnificently well. He learned about Barcelona through the Olympic Games, and in 2005 he came for the first time. He took advantage of some work on an excavation in Perugia, the capital of the Italian region of Umbria, and another volunteer job near Toulouse, to come to Barcelona by coach and visit a friend who lived here. He remembers walking a lot around the city and loving it. At that time, he neither knew that he would end up living and working here, nor that he bore the name of the one to whom the foundation and name of the city of Barcelona are attributed, Hamilcar Barca. Vargas returned to Mexico and studied the development of indigenous communities in Oaxaca, from an economic and social point of view. And she began a master's degree in cultural business management at the University of Barcelona. "I prepared the budget to pay for it with my accounting knowledge." And in September 2012, she began the second year of the master's degree in person in Barcelona."If you don't raise people's awareness, civilizations will end up destroying heritage. It must be cared for as the irreplaceable material it is"
As he also didn't want to be left behind with the indigenous language here, he asked the lady of the apartment where he lived to always speak to him in Catalan. That experience, within the room-for-company exchange program for an elderly person, 'Viure i Conviure', proved to be a cornerstone in his life in Catalonia. They still meet now. He was thirty-two years old then, felt much more mature, had finished two degrees, and managed his savings while finishing his master's. He had thought he would do his final master's project in Mexico, but he didn't have money to go, so he decided to dedicate his study to World Heritage Management in Catalonia. Amilcar visited Barcelona for the first time in 2005, while working on an excavation in Perugia. © Barcelona City Council In one of the interviews he had to do, at Casa Batlló, he was told that they were looking for someone to prepare the report that World Heritage designated monuments have to submit to UNESCO every six years. That job was for him. He had all the experience in project management, as an accountant. And he stayed at Casa Batlló. Afterwards, she earned a doctorate in Society and Culture, which includes history, archaeology, heritage, and cultural management, and also studied a master's degree in Cultural Heritage Management and Museology, and another in Management of Cultural Companies and Institutions, which, in fact, is what has always interested her most: this relationship between people and culture and heritage elements. "More than an interest in the materials and structures of heritage assets, my perspective is anthropological. For me, a key element in heritage consideration is people. If you don't sensitize people, civilizations will end up destroying heritage. It must be cared for as the irreplaceable material it is. And if the archaeologist does not connect with the people around them, they lose an opportunity to conserve. Hermitages, palaces, churches, and cathedrals are made by people and for people, and their preservation also depends on them," states Vargas. Amilcar Vargas began working at Casa Batlló to take charge of the report that monuments designated as World Heritage must submit to UNESCO every six years. © Shuko Kawase And he adds that "all people's stories are part of the history of buildings, part of built heritage. If you don't have the testimony of people, you are left with half the story." And, he says even more: "we are making history, what will be said of us and of all that we leave behind, we are writing it today."
Your task at Casa Batlló is to ensure that heritage regulations are met, heritage responsibility, but also to conduct research and restoration to maintain the authenticity and integrity of the building. Support from my
expertise the restorations,in which daily maintenance and the dissemination of heritage values are included,"
explains. Its role is also a cultural leadership, "we want to be an exemplary reference for the sustainable management of heritage, we who play in the leagues of World Heritage and in that of museums, because we are a musealized monument," he states. And he reminds us that Casa Batlló is the midpoint of Gaudí's work. Twenty years before he made Casa Vicens and twenty years later, he died. "At Casa Batlló I have learned that tourism is a different way of observing heritage"
Recently, Amilcar went up to collect one of the awards that Casa Batlló has recently received for its social innovation, putting true inclusion into practice. The Fundación Diversidad award recognized the hiring of people with neurodiversity, whom Casa Batlló encourages and provides with very dignified work, like any other person. This past October, Casa Batlló also received in Brussels the European Heritage Award Europa Nostra 2025, for its pioneering model of inclusive heritage management and its commitment to neurodiversity. His task at Casa Batlló is to ensure that heritage regulations are met, heritage responsibility, but also to support research and restoration. © Shuko Kawase Continuing with the entire sustainable legacy, reducing energy consumption and spreading that inclusion model is one of the purposes Vargas works on together with the entire team and owners of Casa Batlló. "We would like institutions to look at neurodivergent people, most within the autism spectrum, as people capable of working with the public," he expresses. Everything around him is eminently stimulating. "I feel that I am in a privileged place, but it is a challenge, it is not a decoration. I am part of a very diverse team and I have the pleasure of going around the world talking about us. I am a communicator and this is an honor. I travel to share with the world what we do and I am part of this way of doing things, a learner of everything that is not strictly patrimonial, but that also improves the quality of life of the people who visit our monuments and who work in them. Without people, cultural heritage has no meaning," he insists. "At Casa Batlló I have learned that tourism is a different way of observing heritage," he says. He often travels to Paris to attend meetings at UNESCO headquarters, at the world heritage center where he also worked in 2005, with a European Union scholarship. "It was a brutal experience, I know the lights and shadows of that hierarchical and very complex structure, and very political too, because it is made up of States. And forums are used to position oneself politically." CLike a sponge, wherever he goes, Amilcar Vargas continues to soak up knowledge about world heritage, while he always makes the heartbeat of Barcelona heard.