Surveying and Actioning the Tangible and Intangible dimensions of Rural Heritage in RURITAGE H2020 Project

Rural Heritage is as important as it is difficult to circumscribe, identify and survey but it can also play a major cultural, social and economic role. This paper focuses on the methodology developed by the funded Horizon 2020 Project “Ruritage” where digital tools constitute a focus strategy for the regeneration process for rural regions. In this process the cultural and natural heritage of rural regions includes both tangible and intangible features the identification and visualization of which are very important for the new understandings created and effectiveness of its potential to be developed by local communities. An Atlas permits a simultaneous contextualization of various pilots for the uses required by the project where several pilots create networks for mutual learning process. A digital platform including a web GIS, based on OpenStreetMap, and a database constitute Atlas final output. It is part of a set of digital tools devised to support local stakeholders and monitor territorial developments. The paper will discuss different kinds of contaminations: (i) highlighting cultural and natural heritage together with other resources; (ii) processing different kinds of data for a common purpose (iii) matching direct involvement of individuals and digital tools; (iii) creating a multilevel approach to combining tangible and intangible heritage through a multidisciplinary team. Critical issues of the developed methodologies will also be discussed

Stadtluft Macht Frei? Partecipazione urbana e rurale nella formazione di storie e memorie/ Stadtluft Macht Frei? Urban and rural participation in shaping histories and memories

In the increasingly multicultural world of today, attempts at defining the role of urban memory and identity have become complex involving many stakeholders, from city governments promoting and financing established players such as museums or bourgeois cultural associations to local bottom-up, informally organised initiatives taking care of urban space and linking different urban subcultures to mainstream urban identities (the recent surge for example of garden guerillas which fits in the interest shared by more official stakeholders in different forms of urban gardening and short circuit supply systems). Various groups in urban society have to navigate this complex and diverse field, and initiatives that stimulate the promotion of heritage, which hitherto have primarily been limited to top-down organisations. The contribution introduces some important questions about differing ideas about urbanity, suburbanity and rurality are expresse

Surveying and Actioning the Tangible and Intangible dimensions of Rural Heritage in RURITAGE H2020 Project

Abstract di intervento a convegn

Linking buildings, archives and museums of the 19th century Turin's Cultural Heritage

The documentation of Cultural Heritage asset is the basis for all the interventions and policies on Cultural heritage conservation and management. The documentation is mainly based on historic knowledge and metric survey. As far as historic knowledge is concerned many information are still recorded and preserved inside written documents that are usually not easy to reach and correctly understandable by all the experts that have specific responsibilities on Cultural Heritage. The digitalization of documents (hardly faced in the last years) is not sufficient to guarantee the effective access to the historical information useful inside a documentation process. The documentation always needs an historical interpretation based on a critical reading produced by linking heterogeneous materials. Iconography also is an important source when it is correctly interpreted and linked to other sources. IT development and digital technology diffusion allowed offering new way to record, organize and share historical information: GIS and 3D modeling can be used as standard approaches to transfer the historical knowledge in a proper way to specialists involved in Cultural Heritage conservation and management. They have been generally used as tool to represent information for different targets, the ones mostly for specialized users, the others for edutainment. GIS are largely diffused yet in the Cultural Heritage management, and 3D modeling is wide spread used in museums communication. Nevertheless, both of them have more potential. They could be integrated in order to manage different data set related with the same matter. They could be used to make new research by surveying and improving interpretation in a way ready to transmit the outcomes. To produce a new generation of affordable digital historical products is necessary that the GIS and 3D modeling design and realization would be developed in a multidisciplinary approach that must be explained and demonstrated to the people that in the future will offer to the community this expertise. The paper describes a teaching and research training experience started two years ago at the Politecnico di Torino in the master course on Architecture (Conservation)

3D Digital Modelling and Digital History: A Methodology for Studying the Processes of Transformation of Nubian Temples and Landscape at the Lake Nasser Site

3D models are not only visualization and dissemination outcomes, but can be used to digitally collect, organize and visualize data starting from heterogeneous historical documents. In particular in this research 3D models are conceived to study the transformations of the sites along the river Nile now submerged by the Lake Nasser and the salvage of the temples. This paper illustrates the pre- liminary results and the issues about the use of 3D digital models to study the landscape and the temples before and after the construction of the Big Aswan Dam. The first results show that the discrepancy between the homogeneity of data required to build the 3D model and the non-homogeneity of historical documents is at the same time the weakness and the strength of the method, since it forces to explore new hypothesis and a proper use of paradata to manage the reliability of historical data

The Public Use of History in the Digital Society

In recent times, digital approaches have been applied in many different branches of the humanities and have led to the creation of a major new cross-sector area which brings together disparate expertise and necessitates interdisciplinary cooperation. The digital approach is a common denominator in specialised research and teaching as well as in archival practices, dissemination and publishing. Above all, though, it links people with a specific forma mentis.Looking at this cross sector from an academic point of view one can see that it stimulates a new kind of cooperation among traditional disciplines. Today's researchers, indeed, much more than just making use of digital tools, are seeking a new digital perspective: what in this approach is the common element capable of creating shared knowledge? This is ongoing change requiring an open-minded point of view which can really foster profound innovation, both in culture and in society, and researchers and academics have a crucial role to play to achieve this. Digital History, as part of Digital Humanities, also includes new approaches in research and in dissemination. Our task is to discuss and to publish how historians are using digital potential in "making history". This approach could also prove very effective in fostering both a culture of history and one of participation in society. The result expected, however, goes beyond simple access to historical information, with the creation of a cultural condition for public access to historical knowledge. It should ultimately shape new interactions in the construction of the collective memory, and, as such, it can be a fillip to social and cultural development at large. Looking at this cross sector from an academic point of view one can see that it stimulates a new kind of cooperation among traditional disciplines. Today's researchers, indeed, much more than just making use of digital tools, are seeking a new digital perspective: what in this approach is the common element capable of creating shared knowledge? This is ongoing change requiring an open-minded point of view which can really foster profound innovation, both in culture and in society, and researchers and academics have a crucial role to play to achieve this. Digital History, as part of Digital Humanities, also includes new approaches in research and in dissemination. Our task is to discuss and to publish how historians are using digital potential in “making history”. This approach could also prove very effective in fostering both a culture of history and one of participation in society. The result expected, however, goes beyond simple access to historical information, with the creation of a cultural condition for public access to historical knowledge. It should ultimately shape new interactions in the construction of the collective memory, and, as such, it can be a fillip to social and cultural development at large

To the borders of Art Nouveau

Czernowitz, former capital of the Bukowina in the Hapsburg Empire, changed its political context twice and loose its role and visibility. Harbin, built as a Russian "island" in Northern China beyond the borderline was a major railway town along the Transiberian line branch, established in 1905, but today is a Chinese megalopolis. In both cities – flourished between XIXth and XXth centuries - the Jewish community played a major role. The paper compares these cities where Art Nouveau architecture was the key way to exhibit their “modernity”. In both towns the landmarks, the urban icons “speak” the same architectural Art Nouveau language: the theatre, the Postsparkasse and the new railway station in Czernowitz, the CER (China Eastern Railway) buildings in Harbin, here according to the Russian (Europe-based) spread of the style. These two case-studies, not so well known, worth a focus to show how the European spread of Art Nouveau went to the limit, in areas that were intended as the extreme outposts of the Western-style Civilization as a link to join people and cultures

Sharing knowledge, grasping Cultural Heritage: a digital multidisciplinary approach to the historical process of architecture and urban changes

Digital tools are changing the way of Cultural Heritage is shared and understood in society. However, the key to improve truly the common knowledge about Cultural Heritage could be especially in a multidisciplinary approach in research and in the dissemination of its outcomes. The paper focuses on a multidisciplinary approach by involving Urban and Architectural History, GIS and 3D modelling. It will discuss how new technologies especially help in reconsidering the state of the art and in making understandable the historical process of architecture within the changes of the city. The authors will present this approach applied to a range of 19th and 20th Turin Cultural Heritage, at architectural and urban scale: the large range of buildings designed by Alessandro Antonelli and the destroying and rebuilding of a street with homogeneous front, via Roma, in the 1930’s. Research use GIS, 3D models and digital platforms in order to visualize changes also making visible ideas and designs never realized. Digital platforms link buildings and urban areas to drawings and documents preserved in city museums and archives. The aim is to make truly accessible both historical information and different kind of Cultural Heritage. The conclusion is that this approach to the historical research could improve a wider access to the Cultural Heritage by enhancing the perceptions of the relationships between buildings within the cities, also revealing the Cultural Heritage in archives and museums

3D Digital Modelling and Digital History: A Methodology for Studying the Processes of Transformation of Nubian Temples and Landscape at the Lake Nasser Site

3D models are not only visualization and dissemination outcomes, but can be used to digitally collect, organize and visualize data starting from heterogeneous historical documents. In particular in this research 3D models are conceived to study the transformations of the sites along the river Nile now submerged by the Lake Nasser and the salvage of the temples. This paper illustrates the preliminary results and the issues about the use of 3D digital models to study the landscape and the temples before and after the construction of the Big Aswan Dam. The first results show that the discrepancy between the homogeneity of data required to build the 3D model and the non-homogeneity of historical documents is at the same time the weakness and the strength of the method, since it forces to explore new hypothesis and a proper use of paradata to manage the reliability of historical data

Viollet-le-Duc e la questione dell'autenticità

L'articolo è una riflessione critica sui significati e valori del patrimonio culturale e sulle connessioni con la storia dell'architettura e della cultura ottocentesca intervenendo nel dibattito seguito all'incendio della catredrale di Notre Dame di Parigi