Drawing as witness. The Betta-Bardelli Archive between historical memory and digital innovation

Abstract

In recent years, architecture and project archives have gained growing significance in cultural and scientific spheres. Universities, originally focused on preserving their own institutional memory, are now increasingly acting as custodians of broader architectural heritage through legacies and donations.
This is the case of the Betta-Bardelli archive, housed in the DISEG Department of the Politecnico di Torino. The archive documents the professional careers of architects Pietro Betta and Felice Bardelli from the post-war period to the 1980s, with a specific focus on the Turin area and northern Italy.
The ongoing research and valorization project explores innovative digital tools for organizing, representing, and communicating the archive’s contents. Interactive maps and navigable virtual environments have been developed to allow users to access drawings and simplified 3D reconstructions, enriched with historical and technical data.
The initiative highlights key themes such as social housing (especially INA-Casa projects), public service buildings, and religious architecture, analyzed at different design scales - from urban plans to construction details. One emblematic case study is the INA-Casa office building located at the corner of Via Giolitti and Via Lagrange in Turin.
The project is documented through a wide range of materials, from photographs of wartime dam- age to structural calculations and detailed construction drawings.
This archive thus becomes both a tool for re- search and a medium for narrating urban trans- formation processes through interactive maps and information models linked to and drawings of the historical Archive.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.20365/disegnarecon.34.2025.5