Time indeterminacy and spatio-temporal building transformations: An approach for architectural heritage understanding

Abstract

Nowadays most digital reconstructions in architecture and archeology describe buildings heritage as a whole of static and unchangeable entities. However, historical sites can have a rich and complex history, sometimes full of evolutions, sometimes only partially known by means of documentary sources. Various aspects condition the analysis and the interpretation of cultural heritage. First of all, buildings are not inexorably constant in time: creation, destruction, union, division, annexation, partial demolition and change of function are the transformations that buildings can undergo over time. Moreover, other factors sometimes contradictory can condition the knowledge about an historical site, such as historical sources and uncertainty. On one hand, historical documentation concerning past states can be heterogeneous, dubious, incomplete and even contradictory. On the other hand, uncertainty is prevalent in cultural heritage in various forms: sometimes it is impossible to define the dating period, sometimes the building original shape or yet its spatial position. This paper proposes a modeling approach of the geometrical representation of buildings, taking into account the kind of transformations and the notion of temporal indetermination. © 2009 Springer-Verlag.