Paris Past & Present
“Paris Past and Present is a digital project that aims to create interactive 3D-digital models of great ‘lost’ monuments, architectural complexes, and diverse quartiers of medieval Paris. Through such reconstructions, we hope to make aspects of medieval architecture and urban life more accessible for the classroom and also to facilitate historical research requiring accurate virtual environments.”
Paris Past and Present Homepage
This is a digital project that aims to create interactive 3D-digital models of great ‘lost’ monuments, architectural complexes, and diverse landmarks of medieval Paris.
Through this project, the hope is to reconstruct and make aspects of medieval architecture/urban life more accessible for researchers and to facilitate historical research requiring accurate virtual environments.
Stemming from a Field School class which was offered in past a spring and summer semester, the project was lead by Meredith Cohen, a professor at UCLA who specializes in medieval Perisian architecture. The course aimed to transform the pedagogy of medieval architecture by teaching it through the medium of digital modeling and included the group of students in the creation of the project until the end of the semester. After the completion of the class, the project team shrunk but continued to publish work until 2018. It has helped to expand students’ understanding of medieval building practices and the architectural history of specific monuments, as well as shaped new methods of architectural reconstruction and allowed for further research and understanding to be done by outside viewers.
Website Guide
- The site includes many pages such as:
- Reconstructions: Where you can find the 3D models the project group has created and the description of each of the structures they have created.
- Digital Gothic: Includes the syllabus of the course description and project description. Also includes a tutorials page with linked pdfs of each step of making each 3D structure they made.
- References: Linked in this page is where they found most of their project ideas. They also link videos of some of the structures they studied.
- About Us: Includes a short description of the project and what they aimed to portray. Also includes a page about each person on the team.
- Blog: Allows people to comment on one of their tutorial videos where they talk about the reconstruction of the Lady Chapel.
- They include many 3D interactive models, pictures, & timelines of architectures (made by the students) including The Church of the Jacobins, Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie, Louvre, & almost 15 more! (Can be found on the “Reconstructions” page)
Significance
This is a project that creates interactive 3-Dimensional models of architecture in cities of medieval Paris in order to place architectural structures next to each other which are not near one another in real life and/or do not exist any longer. It recreates a culture that has been lost in order to allow people to learn what they could have had those structures continued to exist both within the classroom and in research where this type of visual information would be necessary.
Other Links
Home Page of Paris Past and Present Project
Syllabus of what the group had to follow for this project
A tutorials page on how they designed and made the 3D models
