The course is an introduction to the Digital Humanities. It presents how research on the Humanities, and more specifically in the History field related to the built environment, the urban space and the landscape, can be improved by a digital approach and the use of digital technologies. The teaching deals with the methodologies of Digital Humanities applied to the history of the architecture, the history of the city and the territory. On the matter of the Master this course focuses on cultural and social sustainable development: it is aimed to analyse how the use of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can help to access information and make more understandable cultural data and architecture in an historical perspective, and to experience a digital approach the research on the process of change of the built environment and the urban space. The purpose is to conceive how to collect and share historical data, create a digital historical product by improving interpretation and allowing the access to architectural information. The main purpose aims to achieve a sustainable approach to the research and re-use of data by a collaborative approach. The theme of the course with its contents also adds an analytical approach to a matter both urban and social useful to reflect on the consequences of governance and planning for democracy and sustainable development. Theoretical lessons and practice first focus on the theme of methodologies of Digital History and analyse case studies related with a range of its application. The second path of the course focuses on a specific theme that will be analysed through theoretical lessons and will be the matter of a training to the research for experiencing the digital approach. This path deals with the gentrification of city centre related to changes provoked by new plans followed to political and other decisions. It will focus on city centre of Paris in the 19th century. Two periods will especially be taken into account: the decades following the French Revolution and the period following the 1848 with the changes due to Napoleon III and Haussmann. The teaching includes both a theoretical and a practical learning. On one hand students will learn methodologies through case studies of Digital History by analysing various kind of digital product of the historical research which use digital tools for collecting, managing and/or communicating historical cultural data. The course will present also the related literature. On the other hand, students will have a practical experience on the use of a digital approach to the historical research. The teacher and the teacher’s assistant will train students in this practical approach to the research by allowing them applying these methodologies to a case study. Practice thus is an integrant part of this course and the expected learning; consequently outcome of practice also are an essential part of the exam. It should be noted that the training to the research is given only in the teaching semester.

The expected learning outcomes of the course concern notions on the main area of the Digital History especially applied to the history of the built and humanized environment, the notion of historical urban landscape, the dynamics of change as well as notions of 19th century urban and architectural history and its various sources (especially applied to theme of the course on 19th century Paris and its historical urban landscape). Students will develop abilities in a strict approach to the matter of a digital approach to historical and cultural data, in implement research, and creativity in conceiving and presenting their research at large. More specifically students are expected to develop peculiar abilities in understanding and conceiving how to how to visualise historical information and create coherent narratives with Digital Humanities methodologies, how to analyse and present space-temporal dynamics, how to recognise and interpret historical sources, how to connect them to digital research elaborations, how to develop keys of interpretations and synthetic digital vision at different scales. Students will become able to research digital sources, study an area with a digital historical approach in a diachronic perspective by using direct and indirect sources, interpreting data into an historical framework, conceiving a virtual re-constructions of historical processes of the changes, and finally create a basic or more complex digital historical product according with their previous digital abilities. The final expected learning outcomes of the practice concern a digital historical research product on the case study demonstrating the research of sources and their interpretation, the conception of a visual representation of data of these research, the correct integration of digital data and the coherent use of tools for the historical narrative and visual reconstruction, as well as the oral presentation and discussion of the final outcomes.

The students are expected starting the course with some previous basics on the history of the architecture, the digital architectural drawing and 3D modeling (this course doesn’t teach 3D modeling!), and basics of software such as AutoCAD, SketchUp, 3DStudio Max, Revit, Blender, Rhino.

The course includes theoretical lessons on Digital Humanities presenting the interdisciplinary cultural debate, and methodologies. Lessons deal with the methodologies of Digital Humanities presented through the analysis of case studies about the spatialisation and visualization of historical data and narratives for different uses and users. These lessons present digital historical products and digital platforms online and on site, such as virtual museums, databases, GIS, 3D models, digital archives, websites by analysing the use of these tools for representing/collecting/managing historical sources, the treatment of data for creating cultural narratives, the impact on the accessing and sharing information (20 hours). In parallel with the methodology of Digital Humanities, the course deals with theoretical lessons on the matter of the gentrification of city centres, and the 19th century and nowadays Paris specifically. Lessons will analyse plans, policies, procedures related to demolitions and reconstructions of 19th Century Paris. Introductory lessons will be followed by detailed analyses of Paris central area around the Louvre, the squares of the municipal building (Hotel de Ville) and the theatre (Chatelet). Several digital sources (cartography, architectural drawings, magazines, and more written documents) will be analysed by focusing on their nature and interpretation, how to extract data from them shape information on the urban space and its functions before/after the change, how to conceive a digital environment for collecting all data and for creating a digital visualisation of the lost contexts (20 hours). This part will also be developed as a research training. Under the supervision of the teacher and the teacher’s assistant, students in small groups of 2 or 3 will develop their own research experience on a specific case study and will create a digital historical product as a part of the collaborative team work of the class (40 hours).

The theoretical concepts listed above will be taught by teaching lessons and coordinating workshops involving students in debate, experience, research and creation. The visit at the Venice Biennial of Architecture of Venice will be organized in the period of the course. The research training is delivered as a workshop and concerns little groups of 2 or 3 students applying methodologies to a given case study. Digitized drawings and information, written texts and documents, and/or digital platforms to implement will be available for students in order to start their own research. The students, regularly assisted, will collect data, interpret sources and visualize historical information on previous conditions, changes, and developments of the site.

1. Readings A. Burdick, J. Drucker, P. Lunenfeld, And T. Presner, J. Schnapp, Digital_Humanities, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2012 https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/content/9780262018470_Open_Access_Edition.pdf R. Tamborrino (ed.), Telling the history of the city in the Age of the ICT Revolution, Rome: CROMA-Università di Roma Tre, 2014 2. Ancillary readings: T. Weller (ed.), History in the digital age, London - New York, Routledge, 2013 Melissa Terras, Julianne Nyhan and Edward Vanhoutte (eds), Defining Digital Humanities. A Reader. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013. J. Guldi, ‘What is the Spatial Turn?’, Spatial Humanities, Institute for Enabling Geospatial Scholarship, University of Virginia, http://spatial.scholarslab.org/spatial-turn/ R. Tamborrino, Fulvio Rinaudo, ‘Translating urban history, research and sources, into interactive digital libraries’, in Geomatics Workbooks n° 12. p. 175-183, Como, Luglio 2015 3. Readings on the case study: R. Tamborrino, Parigi nell’Ottocento. Cultura architettonica e città, Venice: Marsilio 2005 M. Gribaudi, Paris Ville ouvrière. Une histoire occultée (1789-1848), Paris Éditions La Découverte 2014 ‘R. Tamborrino, Le plan d'Haussmann en 1864’, Genèses. Sciences sociales et histoire, Revue du Centre de Sociologie des arts, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, France, 15 (mars 1994), pp. 130-141.

Modalità di esame: Prova scritta (in aula); Prova orale obbligatoria; Progetto di gruppo;

Exam: Written test; Compulsory oral exam; Group project;

... The exam will verify the learning of methodologies, the historical contents and a strict approach of making digital history, It. includes a written test on theory, a deliverable as and an oral public presentation of the outcome of the practice. The student will deliver for the exam: all digital products of his/her research including a report on sources and methodologies. In the report students are requested to specify fully the link to each source of information available for each digital product (hypertexts, movies, animations). At the dates of the exams on the POLITO portal students will face a written text on theoretical contents of the course (4 questions on methodologies of Digital Humanities and case study on the 19th Paris transformations plus an optional open question) and will deliver the materials mentioned above. Teachers will evaluate the written tests (35% of the final evaluation) and the deliverables (50% of the final evaluation); at the end of this evaluation, students will be admitted to present and discuss the achieved results during the group activity, by means of an oral presentation about 1 week later (15% of the final evaluation). The optional additional question and/or reports also can be part of the final evaluation (+5%). Each student will be individually evaluated by considering the wisdom autonomy, the study, research and communication ability and the specific abilities achieved during the teamwork. The final score will be the mean of the written and practical tests. Students not attending the course shouldn’t access the exam. Nevertheless a special written test will be available exceptionally for not attending students for some specific reasons. Candidates are expected answer to several questions on the 1.Readings plus at least one more reading among 2. Ancillary readings and one more reading among 3. Readings on the case study.

Gli studenti e le studentesse con disabilità o con Disturbi Specifici di Apprendimento (DSA), oltre alla segnalazione tramite procedura informatizzata, sono invitati a comunicare anche direttamente al/la docente titolare dell'insegnamento, con un preavviso non inferiore ad una settimana dall'avvio della sessione d'esame, gli strumenti compensativi concordati con l'Unità Special Needs, al fine di permettere al/la docente la declinazione più idonea in riferimento alla specifica tipologia di esame.