Architectural Archives: Graphic Legacies and Digital Divulgations

Abstract

The graphic heritage preserved in architectural archives constitutes an important legacy, not only to be preserved and handed down, but to be disseminated through research and new digital representations that broaden its diffusion and knowledge. The steps relating to the design phases that lead from the sketch to the final project, including the different options and the events that led to the completion of the work, take on the role of testimony of a compositional method surpassed by the fastest computer graphics softwares. Traditional drawings, unlike CAD ones where the graphic process is standardized, allow you to read the cultural and expressive paths imprinted on fragile paper supports. It therefore appears necessary to pay specific attention to research on original projects, on fragile drawings that risk disappearing due to the perishability of the material that define them and their lack of systematization, in particular that relating to the numerous private archives in the cataloguing phase. In this sense, a research methodology is proposed applied to a case study, conducted using a replicable and implementable scientific method dedicated to architectural archives. This is the project of a public work relating to the period of post-war reconstruction after the Second World War, extrapolated from a significant and little-known private archive, currently under re-arrangement, useful for understanding the political logic and historical-cultural influences of the period in the Italian provinces. This is the project for the extension of the Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Crafts and Agriculture of the city of Pescara by the architect Antonio Cataldi Madonna which is one of the most representative modern architectures of the Adriatic city. The graphic analysis highlights the cutting-edge technological and structural solutions that allowed the architect to experiment with an innovative stylistic language that is now analysed and reconfigured three-dimensionally with the new languages of representation in order to understand and disseminate the important and unprecedented graphic heritage.