Dominik LENGYEL | Catherine TOULOUSE
(BTU University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg, Germany)
Keywords: visualisation, uncertainty, hypothesis, abstract design
Abstract:
The paper describes the necessity of architectural design in the process of creating abstract geometry as representation of archaeological hypotheses in opposition to pretended reconstructions.
Methodology: How were the objectives reached? Which methods were used?
Knowledge in archaeology, building or art history is generally of largely different certainty including contradictions and multivalencies, which unambiguously excludes true reconstructions in the sense that the reconstruction equals its origin. Instead there is a number of hypotheses that approximate the historic state. The visualisation of hypotheses with a special regard on uncertain knowledge, i. e. respecting and explicitely showing this uncertainty, is a counter position towards pretended reconstructions.
Results: What are the results of the work?
A number of projects e. g. in cooperation with the German Archaeological Institute DAI, the State’s Museums in Berlin SMB (e. g. the first scientific 3D model of Pergamon and the Palatine palace in Rom, both presented in the Pergamon Museum Berlin), the Museum for Islamic Art Berlin (e. g. the Sasanian metropole Ktesiphon), funded by the German Research Foundation DFG and as part of the DFG Excellence Cluster TOPOI (mainly hosted by the universities FU Berlin and HU Berlin) that successfully visually mediated the state of science and its scientific characteristics among the scientists as well as to the public.
Innovations: What is new and significant about your ideas, methods, and results?
The visualisation of hypotheses has a higher scientific impact incorporating uncertain knowledge as inevitable characteristic of science. One way of visually expressing different possible states in one image is the use of abstract geometry. This implies a highly qualified handling of abstract geometry (model making) and imagery (architectural photography) being a creative act of design with effect on the inner-scientific and public perception of the historic topic. So qualified architectural design makes the difference.