(IN)TANGIBLE HERITAGE(S)

Abstract

This presentation to the Congress will explain how the Research Project “FAIR-Data Architecture” is designed to use digital tools in order to study and disseminate the work of a group of architects who worked in Portugal in the 20th century.
The Project was developed at the University of Coimbra (UC), and was presented to the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) in the form of an application for funding, in April 2020. “FAIR-Data Architecture” develops a research method that implies the collaboration of two scientific areas, Architecture and Information Science, and within this disciplinary intersection model, 5 main study cases will be analyzed, starting from 5 original and unpublished Architectural Collections – Carlos de Almeida (1920-2009), Architect / SOLUM construction company (1964-1989) / Armando Alves Martins (1922-2015), Architect and Visual Artist / Jorge Figueira (b.1965), Architect and Critic / Etienne de Groer (1882-1974), Urbanist Architect. The analyzed study cases allow a great representativeness of the main architectural and historiographic phenomena present into Portuguese Architecture of the 20th Century – Different Project scales (from single-family housing to Urban plans for entire cities), different ways of understanding the disciplinary limits of Architecture (Visual Arts, Theory of Architecture, Urbanism), different chronological periods. Likewise, in relation to the scientific area of Information Science, the selected study cases allow a great representativeness of the problems of archival description and classification that can be found in the activity of an Architectural Archive, and which distinguishes it from other Archives with other types of documentation – Original handmade drawings, blueprints, photographs, three-dimensional documents (models), documents in digital format. The defined work plan organizes the study cases in 3 groups, allowing to distribute the schedule of a set of actions, scientific meetings, and forms of dissemination, over the 3 years of the Project duration. Each of these groups of study cases will be analyzed over a year. The architectural Collections will be organized by the Information Science team, responsible for their archival description and the digitization of a significant part. Simultaneously, the team of Architecture researchers will work on the study of these Collections, preparing the organization of Seminars and Colloquia; the installation of Exhibitions; and the publication of monographs bringing together the studies developed and part of the documentation dealt with. At the intersection of the work developed by researchers from the two scientific areas, each of these cycles ends with the online publication of the knowledge produced through the existing web platforms of UC – both the archival description of the Collections, and the Exhibitions or Colloquia material, will be published online in open access. The design of this research method is inspired by the “FAIR Data” principles, which propose that all academic knowledge production must be – Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable – and apply them to study of Portuguese Architecture from the 20th Century. The Project was not selected for funding, but the research team (consisting of 12 Researchers – 8 from the Area of Architecture, and 4 from the Area of Information Science) is determined to find other forms of funding to implement this Project.