Despite the value of monuments and historic buildings, they are subject to be destroyed or totally vanished. Conservation projects can protect them from deterioration, but, according to Venice Charter, it's not acceptable to reconstruct a whole extinct monument. So, instead of reconstructing them physically, artists and researchers tend to visualize their thoughts about lost monuments in the form of paintings, graphics, physical models, digital models, 3D animated movies or virtual environments. Those reconstructions are usually made for cultural, touristic, educational, scientific, entertainment or conservational purposes. This field is generally called "Visual or Graphical Reconstruction of Lost Architectural Heritage" and in digital era "Virtual or Digital Reconstruction / Reconstitution". But the problem of these reconstructions is that they may be used - intentionally or unintentionally - to disseminate false interpretations or misconceptions about the lost heritage, due to lack of information, human mistakes, bias or prejudice, especially in digital revolution era. So the objective of this research is to create a theoretical model to make and evaluate such reconstructions on an objective basis, and indicate the reliability degree of each part of them.
The dissertation is consisted of ten chapters. The 1st. Chapter deals with the basic concepts of lost architectural heritage and conservation strategies related to it. It explains the importance of visual reconstructions and shows some worldwide examples. It ends with a literature review. The 2nd. Chapter discusses the different types of information sources related to vanished monuments, such as: ruins, architectural remains, historical accounts, texts, old documents, photographs, paintings, drawings, historical inscriptions, engravings, coins, sculptures, ancient maps and archaeological survey. The 3rd. Chapter focuses on criticism and investigation of sources. There are two types of criticism: external and internal. External criticism attempts to determine the authenticity, validity, or trustworthiness of the source. Internal criticism tries to determine the accuracy and the best architectural interpretation of the information extracted from the source. The 4th. Chapter discusses how to compare and synthesize that information to make a primary reconstruction and indicate its data gap (the unknown parts which have no data). This gap can be completed by studying similar buildings of the same style and applying logical inference methods, such as deduction, induction and analogy. If this gap is still unknown after that, it should be abstracted or avoided in the final reconstruction, but imagination is unacceptable.
The 5th. Chapter is concerned with building the suggested theoretical model and the criteria of evaluation, depending on results of the previous chapters. This model should be tested to check its efficiency, by applying it to reconstruct an extinct monument and assess its reliability degree. It is chosen to reconstruct the Madrasa of al-Salih Najm al-Din Ayyub, in Bayn al-Qasrayn region, at Islamic Cairo. The 6th. Chapter is the case study introduction. It contains the reasons for choosing this Madrasa and some basic data about it. The 7th. Chapter analyzes the architectural remains of it. The 8th. Chapter analyzes the other information sources, like historical accounts, photographs and old drawings. The 9th. Chapter focuses on comparison between sources, synthesis of information, specifying the data gap and attempts to complete it by logical inference. At the end of this chapter the final reconstruction is represented in the form of plans, elevations, sections, exteriors and interiors, with an analysis of reliability degree of each part. The 10th. Chapter includes the conclusion and recommendations about developing and utilizing the suggested model. |
