CIPA HERITAGE DOCUMENTATION - CIPA - Icomos

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1.1 State-of-the-Art
Introduction
to Heritage Documentation
P. Patias 1 , M. Santana 2
1. Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Department of Cadastre, Photogrammetry and Cartography,
Univ. Box 473, GR-54124 Thessaloniki, patias@auth.gr
2. Department of Architecture, Urban and Regional Planning - R.Lemaire International Center
for Conservation - University of Leuven (KU Leuven), president@cipa.icomos.org
Cultural documentation is a complicated process, and includes
a wide suite of activities that include surveying, testing
and monitoring and gathering textual and other information.
“The geometry of the object is not the only parameter to be recorded.
All specificities making the object unique are meaningful;
all potential values – architectural, artistic, historical,
scientific and social – are parameters to consider”, (D’Ayala
and Smars, 2003).
The guiding concepts of cultural heritage documentation
have been detailed by D’Ayala and Smars (2003) (Patias,
2007) as:
➧ Objectivity: “… an objective basis is a guarantee to having
a firm ground on which to debate the conservation choices…”
and “…the use of any specific set of data necessarily
influences any decision-making process. The manner in
which a survey is executed significantly influences further
actions”.
➧ Values: “The recorder’s choices are critical…… What is
seen today as uninteresting may appear tomorrow as extremely
valuable. The importance of thorough recording is
emphasised by the common loss of minor details which
may disappear at the moment of new conservation work,
leading to loss of integrity or of historical evidence.”
➧ Learning process.
➧ Continuity: “… Documentation should not be seen as an
activity confined within a set time…. Therefore, a basic requirement
is that the results of documentation should be
available for future use.”
➧ Fabric: “Documentation should not stop at the surface....
Integration with other documentation techniques is necessary.”
➧ Documentation sets: “Information gathered during documentation
may be large and manifold…. thus it is critical to
organise the available information, for which the metric
survey is a natural support. Sets of thematic drawings (geometry,
materials, pathologies etc.) can be prepared. A
specific set prepared by one specialist can bring insight to
other specialists who are working on other sets.”
➧ Redundancy: “… Every piece of information is associated
with uncertainty. Documentation data should be supplemented
by information about the quality of the data. Control
procedures offer a way to assess quality.”
These concepts lead to increasing needs for recording and
documentation of CH, which put briefly are:
➧ recording of a vast amount of four dimensional (i.e. 3-D
plus time) multisource, multi-format and multi-content information,
with stated levels of accuracy and detail;
➧ digital inventories in 3-D and, as far as available, dated historical
images;
➧ management of the 4-D information in a secure and rational
way, making it available for sharing and distribution to
other users; and
➧ visualization and presentation of the information in a userfriendly
way, so that different kinds of users can actually retrieve
the data and acquire useful information, using Internet
and visualization techniques.
CIPA’s main objective is to provide an international focal
point for efforts in the improvement of all methods for surveying
of cultural monuments and sites. The combination of all
aspects of photogrammetry with other surveying methods is
regarded as an important contribution to recording and monitoring
cultural heritage, to the preservation and restoration of
any valuable architectural or other cultural monument, object
or site, and to provide support to architectural, archaeological
and other art-historical research.
1. IntroductIon to HerItage documentatIon
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