Building Documentation
The building documentation system we introduce here started from the wish to collect, keep and share information about buildings in open-air museums, as well as the source material for these buildings. The documentation structure is about 80% identical for buildings in both historical and archaeological open-air museums. We found inspiration in older systems, developed in for example the Netherlands. The work of Volmer & Zimmerman 2012 (see Communities and Resources) has been instrumental for us.
The RETOLD partners, specifically the open-air museums, have taken this building documentation system as an important task to develop and test extensively: trying out the work flow, discussing terminology and ease of working.
Once the documentation is completed, parts of it can be shared to or viewed by different audiences, depending on the settings. For their purpose, the order of information will be changed.
The structure
The building documentation system consists of three parts.
- The first two sections (Building Summary and The Documenter) together form the summary of the building documentation.
- In sections 3, 4 and 5 (Source Material, Inhabitants, Type & Role and Extra Information about historical buildings) you describe the original building remains, the source material so to say.
- Sections 6 and 7 (Basic Facts and Documentation of the Construction Process) are about the building in the museum. Take good care before you start with section 8 (Detailed Technical Description). This is a detailed technical description of your building in the museum. It is well worth to document this thoroughly, but requires some preparation.
In each section, you can see whom the information is for: museum staff, research and / or visitors. Also, in many places you can or should upload photos, plans, literature references or links to online information.
The 3D model with walk through is a separate item, but very important. When 3D model is added you can add information to it on annual base, or more often, and also use it for a guided tour for your visitors.
Before you start
Before you start documenting, please check all the fields, decide which optional fields you like to fill in and collect the information necessary beforehand. You need to please consider beforehand how the fields are filled in.
Setting Up
Before filling out the documentation form itself, you need to set things up. Here you define people which pop up later in your documentation, like a documenter.
Not One, but two Buildings
Very early, we make a distinction between the original material and the building in the museum. For those museums with an archaeological background this may sound obvious: the findings one excavates cannot be transferred 1:1 into a museum, and for sure will not form a presentation of a building. But also historical houses which are being translocated into an open-air museum are not the same before and after translocation. Some elements, like parts of the foundations or the roof, may not follow along and therefore stay behind, even if they are well-documented. The building in the museum will in that case consist partly of new matter, carefully crafted following the documentation of the original.
Both the reconstructed house in the museum, based on archaeology, and the transalocated house in the museum, based on history, may be adapted to depict a certain period in its lifetime. Even if the original house may have been used over several generations. This too, may lead to the application of "new" materials, as closely possible to what we know may have been used in that past.