Digital Archives for Preserving and Communicating Architectural Drawings

Archives composed by architects and engineers projects are unique and significant sources for scientific research in understanding architecture in all its features connected also with multiple disciplines (history of architecture and representation, conservation, urbanism and landscape). Contemporary architectural archives contain relations which cannot easily be read and contextualized because of the documents organization and order, given by the archival necessities and the producers themselves during their working activity. According to the archival science, the documents reorganization is forbidden even if it could be helpful for their analyses. The use of digital databases at microscopic and macroscopic scale allows the contextualization of the archival data, in order to help the public to elaborate information and acquire new relations. The authors investigate the phenomenon underlining the benefits and the risks connected to the digitization of the contemporary architectural archives, focusing on their communicative potentialities thanks to the tools of the digital representation, in relation to the necessities of fruition and preservation of the original archival materials.