Date: 25 September 2020
Name of Speaker: Tapasya Samal
Designation: Associate Professor
Title of Proposition: Archiving Architecture: perpetuating built heritage in the digital landscape
Societies are perpetually outrunning resources and the trend of changed bye-laws, updated land-use patterns or new development regulations have become the mandate of every progressive country, especially in its urban areas. In the light of the revolution, many Modern period buildings have found dynamites under them despite being perfectly healthy for continued use or adaptation.
There are many arguments for sustaining and adapting existing buildings even if they are not of prime heritage value, depending on their age, historical associations or simply their utilitarian design and aesthetics. To further reinforce the cause of, archiving their values may prove of immense value.
The proposition set out to explore the various aspects of archiving architecture, especially ‘everyday utilitarian’ architecture from the last century. The beginning sets the tone with questions surrounding the fate of modern structures, citation of some stories and why action is deemed necessary in this direction. Some of the important causes of change in modern office buildings include need for expansion, regular maintenance changing identity and gradual adaptation. Next various archiving methods and archives supporting architectural heritage have been enlisted with their highlights and pitfalls especially with respect to the typology at hand. The idea of learning from the process of organised data representing value of the heritage buildings of considerable value is elaborated citing examples. An understanding of existing experiments is used to define advantages of creating accessible archives, disadvantages and implemented methods. The presentation ends with some more questions surrounding the move: the actual impact of open information for promotion, preservation and protection of listed heritage.
YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gewqIM8EH8g&t=6s
