Città Invisibili of Teatro Potlach

Città Invisibili is a multidisciplinary art project made by the Italian company Teatro Potlach. Compared to the canonical theatrical performances, Città Invisibili, being in its essence a site-specific performance, interacts with the place where it grows. With the project, the Italian group builds next to the existing space of the place (physical space and memory space) other two spaces, the space of the staging and the space of the performer, using different materials, in particular cloths and video projections. Moreover Teatro Potlach conducts a historical, anthropological and social research trying to bring out the latent memory of places. All these interventions bring out from the place a city never seen before, invisible to the eyes of its inhabitants, but present and buried in the meanderings of their memory. The objective is to bring out this memory so that the inhabitants preserve and hand down it to new generations.

Palatium Vetus in Alessandria

The book “Palatium Vetus: The broletto recovered in the heart of Alessandria” is the theoretical, scientific and cognitive achievement of the complex restoration and enhancement, that have returned to the building its role of town prominent features, one of the main focal points of its architectural and urban history. The volume is presented as a result of a large-scale cultural relationship, created and programmed between the ‘Palazzo del governatore' of Alessandria and the Politecnico di Torino. The use of innovative technologies of representation, aimed to combine – also edited in new forms – the concept of 'Digital History', constitute a useful opportunity of welding between the correctness of the contents, the scientific-disciplinary outcome and the divulgative effectiveness. The 'Virtual Communication' becomes a media that clarifies the new role of the restored building as cultural center, able to revamp the image of the entire local community.

U.I.R.D.A. – Unbuilt Italian Rationalism Digital Archive

For twenty years, the architecture of Italian rationalism through the digital modelling has been investigated. Very often, the production of a model and the consequent representation of tridimensional views, in many case studies, as outcome of the research on architecture have been considered. Actually, the digital model, intended as a critical tool, has to be conceived as a ‘starting point' for graphic analysis of architecture and not as the outcome. Indeed, it is associated to other graphics, sometimes not ‘deducted' from the model, useful for the understanding/translation of architecture. The construction of the model is not the construction of a simple image, operation, which is often carried out for the representation of the project, but it is the hermeneutic and critical result of the drawing tending to the analysis of the form, which is the true object of ‘imitation'. This study wants to contribute to the construction of a digital archive on the topic of the single-family house investigated by Piero Bottoni and Luigi Vietti.

Representation and Elaboration of Architectural Perspectives

In the present contribution, the author presents research on the Winter Room of Palazzo Brignole-Sale (Palazzo Rosso) in Genoa, Italy, which is part of the decorative cycle of the Seasons. The cycle displays the peculiar characteristics of the seventeenth-century Genoese decorative style, where architecture, painting, furniture and stuccos are highly interconnected. The research was carried out using the data collected with nodal-photography techniques. Thanks to these techniques, it was to possible to obtain an interactive panoramic spherical photo and high-resolution scaled photos of planar projections of the architectural perspective, in order to identify the real and illusory space. The analysis proceeded with a series of reverse-perspective constructions and the consequent reconstruction (using three-dimensional models) of the possible virtual space represented in the paintings. Thanks to this information, the author was able to carry out the necessary study to understand the peculiar characteristics of the decorations, the optical illusions of which are extremely impressive.

Expanded Cultural Heritage Representation

The purpose of this chapter is to investigate some of the opportunities offered by technological innovations, in particular referring the specific application areas of Augmented Reality and Augmented Virtuality. The contribution presents a series of applications based on effective tests of innovative communication, which are characterized by different levels of interactivity and immersion. The general subject of interest is the city of Ascoli Piceno considering both the city as a whole and particular places/buildings of value (case studies). The central aim is to construct an informational/educational approach to real objects in innovative terms, experimenting each time with the most useful ‘container' (communicational product) to enable the best knowledge of a determined heritage.

“The Past is Never Dead. It's Not Even Past”

In the European ancient foundation city, the past forms a constitutive part of its structure. However, it is not easily recognizable in cities like Milan, where the ruins of monuments of imperial era (as the Theater, the Amphitheater and the Circus) have been submerged by the urban stratification. The recent success of visualization systems by web (such as GoogleMaps or Bing) have highlighted a widespread need for knowledge of places, which can be satisfied through an innovative application of tools as GIS. This chapter explains how, in the virtual space-time of a webGIS, it is possible to provide specific paths, that accompany any user, even if he doesn't have specific skills, to discover the immanent remote past of the city, described by an appropriate display of its cartographic and iconographic heritage.

Real/Not Real

Recent advances in data acquisition techniques and modeling tools lead towards a large availability of digital 3D models. Cultural Heritage domain, and particularly Architecture and Archaeology Heritage (AAH) significantly benefits from the introduction of digital 3D modeling, which represents a means of communication and dissemination. An underlying research challenge is represented by the portability of complex artifact, making them suitable for a large set of devices (e.g. mobile devices). The aim of this chapter is to outline best practices for the correct visualization of the 3D reconstructions of architectural and cultural heritage, especially for Mobile Augmented Reality and Holographic applications. A complete methodology is presented, ranging from data acquisition, simplification and visualization, underlining the importance of fostering architectural values in a compelling way. Authors also provide state of art challenges, limitations and opportunities, arguing the dissertation through a set of ad-hoc applications developed for different case studies.

Digital Surveying in Cultural Heritage

Cultural Heritage is recognized as a priceless asset of human being, which exposes the humanity's achievements over centuries. The need for documentation and preservation of cultural heritage is well known worldwide. Digital surveying techniques are playing a catalytic role towards recording and documentation of cultural heritage. This chapter describes the methodological and technological aspects of image-based recording and documentation approaches acting as the vehicle for the digital surveying of cultural heritage. The chapter not only describes the different technologies and techniques used but also goes to the extent of clarifying several applied implementation issues. Three different examples and application case studies from a small, a medium and a large-scale cultural heritage objects are provided to demonstrate the developments.

The MuseBot Project

This chapter intends to present the MuseBot system as the result of multidisciplinary research, underway at the University of Cassino and Southern Latium, which focuses on the use of robots for visiting a museum during closing time. During the visit the visitor, connected to the robot through a home computer, smartphone or tablet can control and “drive” the device through the halls of the museum. During the virtual tour the visitor, focusing and viewing the various works on display can get a simple view or an extended examination of the work that he/she is looking at, through a specially prepared multimedia database.

Virtuality and Multimedia for Digital Heritage

The present chapter concerns the multimedia products related to Schifanoia Palace and its famous Hall of Months, some already completed and others still in the design phase. The building, fulfilling the role of museum, is almost entirely closed to the public following the earthquakes of 2012: access is possible only to the main hall, but it will shortly become unusable for a period of at least 12 months due to important works of consolidation, restoration and re-functionalization. The research project is split in stages, half of which have already been completed to date. Its objective is to provide support to visitors in this period of reduced use of space and to be one of the leading tools of communication for the new Schifanoia Civic Museum.