• Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage

In 1986, a group of Spanish architects decided to physically recreate an icon of modernist architecture. Mies van der Rohe’s German pavilion for the Barcelona World Expo of 1929 was at the cutting edge of spatial and structural innovation but its influence was limited to what we understand through drawings, photographs, limited film footage and historical interpretations. We can now physically visit the pavilion and experience it but what of all the other pavilions by famous (and less famous) architects that are no more? It would be costly and time consuming to physically rebuild all of them, however virtual reality (VR) technologies and human computer interaction (HCI) methods can bring them back to life. International expo pavilions are temporary structures designed to be at the cutting edge of structural and material technology but what makes them unique and inspirational is seldom preserved directly, their architectural insights, experiential richness and cultural significance are easily lost. This paper asks: How might immersive digital experiences of space help us to recapture ‘authentic’ experiences of history and place? What implications does this have for architectural history, heritage and conservation? The authors offer some answers to these questions by presenting preliminary results from a larger project entitled ‘Learning from Lost Architecture’: a virtual reconstruction of the Italian Pavilion at the Paris Expo of 1937. Firstly, we will contextualise the practice of digital cultural heritage and present its potential for immersive, investigatory architectural experiences. Secondly, we will critique our own practice to better evaluate the potential of virtual reconstructions to affect architectural learning, discovery and historiography. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

The aims of this study, within the framework of the Europeana Common Culture project, are to: 1. Determine current and planned approaches and practices within the Europeana aggregation ecosystem in relation to crowdsourced metadata and content. 2. Investigate, as comprehensively as possible, past and existing DCH crowdsourcing initiatives across Europe, systematically describing their status and gaining a sound understanding of current practices. 3. Assess the feasibility, desirability and challenges faced in any effort to strengthen the pipeline from such initiatives to enable ingestion of their metadata or access to their content through Europeana. 4. Provide recommendations and guidelines for consideration by Europeana, aggregators and Cultural Heritage Institutions. 5. Support the creation of training materials for the Europeana ecosystem in terms of any agreed interaction with Europeana around crowdsourced assets and deliver this by suitable means (e.g. webinars, Europeana Pro). The work carried out has involved a 9 month programme (April-December 2020) consisting of desk research, , three online questionnaire surveys (to national aggregators; thematic/domain aggregators and external crowdsourcing initiatives respectively), a series of interviews and three consultative on-line events. The survey data are summarised in extensive annexes.

This project surveyed the Sundarban Anchalik Sangrahasala Collection housed in the Sundarban area of South 24 Parganas District of West Bengal.The survey includes the historical background to the collection, the challenges the team faced, the listing for the manuscripts that were digitised, and an inventory of the manuscripts housed at Sundarban Anchalik Sangrahasala (pages 18-35)Further details about the project can be found on the EAP website, as well as the digital versions of manuscripts that were copied.