Carol Cortobius Architecture

Carol Cortobius was an architect trained in Germany, with an initial practice at Otto Wagner in Vienna, who worked for the Hungarian community in Bucharest building churches. An introduction on the catholic Hungarian community in Bucharest will be given. Dănuț Doboș in a monograph of one catholic church in Bucharest offers an overview of all his works. For the three catholic churches on which he intervened (two built, one restored, but altered now) there are monographs showing archive images not available for the general public. Apart of the catholic churches (two of the Hungarian community) he also built the baptist seminar. Particularly the first built church, Saint Elena, is interesting as an early example of Art Deco and will be analysed in the context of the Secession in Vienna and Budapest, which will be introduced. With help of historic maps the places of the works were identified. Many of them do not exist today anymore because of demolitions either to build new streets or those of the Ceaușescu period (ex. the opereta theatre, a former pharmacy). Images of these were looked for in groups dedicated to he disappeared Uranus neighbourhood The paper will show where these were located. Some of the common buildings have an interesting history, such as the first chocolate factory. Another interesting early Art deco building is the pelican house. There are common details between this and the restored church. The research will be continued with archive research in public archives when the sanitary situation will permit.

Toponym-assisted map georeferencing: Evaluating the use of toponyms for the digitization of map collections

A great deal of information is contained within archival maps—ranging from historic political boundaries, to mineral resources, to the locations of cultural landmarks. There are many ongoing efforts to preserve and digitize historic maps so that the information contained within them can be stored and analyzed efficiently. A major barrier to such map digitizing efforts is that the geographic location of each map is typically unknown and must be determined through an often slow and manual process known as georeferencing. To mitigate the time costs associated with the georeferencing process, this paper introduces a fully automated method based on map toponym (place name) labels. It is the first study to demonstrate these methods across a wide range of both simulated and real-world maps. We find that toponym-based georeferencing is sufficiently accurate to be used for data extraction purposes in nearly half of all cases. We make our implementation available to the wider research community through fully open-source replication code, as well as an online georeferencing tool, and highlight areas of improvement for future research. It is hoped that the practical implications of this research will allow for larger and more efficient processing and digitizing of map information for researchers, institutions, and the general public.

A Multisource Approach to Verify a Forest as a Reference of Natural Conditions in an Intensively Used Rural Landscape (Uckermark, Ne Germany)

BackgroundThe sharp decline in near-natural areas worldwide is undisputed, but the consequences of this decline, apart from the loss of biodiversity, cannot be fully assessed. Biotic components of a landscape are usually more easily assessed than the abiotic components, since biotic components are often more easily detectable. A forest of (semi)natural stocking was selected in the northeastern part of Brandenburg (northeast Germany) to check whether it can serve as reference site for near-natural conditions or not. Analyses of archival sources and historic maps as well as field investigations were combined to reconstruct the dynamics of vegetation and soil as far back in time as possible.ResultsPalynological data from nearby sites provide evidence that the investigated area has been forested for several thousands of years and has hardly been structurally influenced by humans in the last 450 years. This evidence together with historical maps of tree species composition allows us to infer that the specific forest has been very close to a natural state for at least 250 years. Soil investigations support this conclusion, since a soil inventory, field studies on two catenas and corings at selected depressions rarely show signs of anthropogenic erosion and related colluviation. Parts of the area were cleared in prehistory, but near-natural soils have been preserved in other parts. ConclusionsThe area with these undisturbed parts is regarded as an ideal reference site. With this study, we show that using a multi-source approach it is possible to find potential reference sites and that such an approach is applicable in other regions.

Raising awareness of the cultural, architectural, and perceptive values of historic gardens and related landscapes: panoramic cones and multi-temporal data

Historic gardens and their related landscapes are often experienced only for their social, aesthetic, and environmental resources, yet their cultural, architectural, and perceptive significance is often ignored. The paper demonstrates how historic and educational values of historic gardens and related landscapes can be revealed by combining historic maps, reading perspective cones, and also applying advanced digital and educational methods and techniques. Historical maps, especially military and cadastral maps, associated with historical iconography, can provide us with a lot of information to study historical gardens and also to define conservation and valorization plans that are related to the history of the site: geomatics tools to georeference and co-relate metric and non-metric historical maps provide growing useful outputs, that can be deployed through the use of Virtual Hubs, boosting the availability of content and the accessibility of open data for policy makers, experts, and non-expert members. Moreover, they can also support heritage education programs providing the opportunity to allow to understand the wealth of sites now simplified, in their system, with different functions and with a transformed context. The study of historic gardens involves the analysis of the landscape in its dynamism and complexity, defines tools that make users more aware of the richness of our heritage.

Visual Exposure of Rock Outcrops in the Context of a Forest Disease Outbreak Simulation Based on a Canopy Height Model and Spectral Information Acquired by an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

This research was focused on the study of visual exposure evolution in the locality of the Drátenická skála nature monument (in the Czech Republic) and the surrounding forest complex in terms of history and through modelling for further possible stand development. The local forests underwent conversion from a natural fir-beech composition to an intensive spruce monoculture with few insect pests or windbreak events to an actual bark beetle infestation. Historic maps, landscape paintings, photographs, and orthophotos served as the basic materials for the illustration of the past situation. Further development was modelled using canopy height models and spectral properties captured by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). As an example, the possible situation of total mortality among coniferous spruce trees after a bark beetle outbreak was modelled. Other options and a practical use of such preprocessed data are, for example, a model for opening and transforming the stands around the rock as one of the ongoing outcrop management trends in the protected landscape area (PLA) of Žďárské vrchy.

Altered surface hydrology as a potential mechanism for subsidence in coastal Louisiana

The natural wetlands of coastal Louisiana are experiencing rapid subsidence rates averaging 9±1 mm yr−1. Recent measurements based on GPS data and CRMS surface elevation tables (SETs) have shown that most of the subsidence is shallow and occurs in the uppermost 5 meters. Sources of subsidence and the origin of their spatial variability are strongly debated. Here we use CRMS SETs together with historic maps of coastal Louisiana to explore two hypotheses: (i) shallow subsidence is a result of accommodation created by (long-term) deep subsidence processes and self-weight consolidation, and (ii) changes in marsh hydrology (groundwater and surface water flows) have led to a recent increase in shallow subsidence. First, we find that, although self-weight consolidation would result in generally high observed shallow subsidence rates, it does not explain the rates nor the spatial variability of the CRMS SET data. Second, based on historic maps, we find that shallow subsidence rates are significantly higher for CRMS sites where shipping canals have reduced their distance to the marsh edge. This is potentially a result from increased sediment deposition, but CRMS data also show altered groundwater levels near the marsh edge. We find some indication that prolonged periods of low water could have led to increases in effective stresses that explain some of the rapid rates of shallow subsidence observed along Louisiana's coastline.