A Project of digitalization and classification of Architectural Monuments of Islamic Countries

Abstract

A Project of digitalization and classification of Architectural Monuments of Islamic Countries : a possible use.

The cataloguing of monuments of Islamic architecture, a work that was ahead of its time, initially financed by UNESCO in the 1980s, but then continued with private funds, is largely due to Paolo Cuneo.

The work of the Ce.S.A.D.A. (Centro Studi Automazione Dati in Architettura) has been conducted for years involving various specialists from various countries: architectural historians, restorers, architects, designers.

This work has laid the foundations for a basically complete catalogue, the General Inventory of Islamic Architecture.

Each monument's card presents various fields, among others: a brief architectural description, historical and chronological data, an accurate bibliography, and the plan, also taken from unobtainable publications and, many times, from unpublished sources.

All this makes it a detailed handbook of architectural monuments, not only religious, of the vast Islamic world.

The untimely death of Professor Cuneo did not interrupt the work, which was carried out by his collaborators. The Politecnico di Torino II Faculty of Architecture has collaborated in the revision and updating.

The objective of this work is the systematic use of the General Inventory, which is available to scholars of multiple disciplines.

The multiplicity of data inserted allows to highlight different elements of the monuments themselves, to compare them, to detect similarities of models, co-presences of types in different areas, similarities and concordances, signs of ethnic and cultural contagion, but also signs of continuity.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.20365/disegnarecon.25.2020.12