(IN)TANGIBLE HERITAGE(S)

Abstract

The lockdowns of 2020-21 meant a quest for alternative resources to be used in online teaching in the School of Architecture and Design in Birmingham City University. Substituting for the direct interface of the person with the fabric and setting of a building was a particular challenge for teaching about the historic environment. Some of these new resources included 3D scans of the interiors of buildings and of their constituent parts. In some cases they allowed surface understanding and the grasp of spatial volumes, but at a certain point they presented a block to deeper understanding; in others they revealed construction in a way not usually accessible. This paper examines and reflects on two different virtual 3D experiences used in teaching. One, the scan of the Former Curzon Street Railway Station in Birmingham, permitted students to be given a tour around the building, to apply vocabulary, to experience vertigo over the staircase, and to consider conservation issues. The second a tour of a farmstead site, Llwyn Celyn, Wales, deconstructed elements normally covered up but exposed during renovation, such as doorsets and timber frame joints; this put the anatomy of the building on show. It pointed to both the original maker of the element and to the modern craftsperson taking it apart and repairing it, as well as to the current viewer experiencing both. The significance of the building as a created object, beyond all the layers of who lived in it, what its significance was, became foregrounded. Both experiences tempted the student with fabric, and the tangibility of fabric, but kept it just beyond their reach. Experiencing the scans using Oculus headsets whilst actually on site, as became possible in 2022, added another layer to the spectrum of experiences. We are way beyond the binary construct of the tangible/intangible here!