The project, Building History, is unique because it is a Digital Humanities project that displays the change of the famous Illinois Institute of Technology’s Mies campus over time. This project is self-referencing the biography about their campus, which has 20 buildings designed by the famous architect, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Building History has an interactive map of the campus with a timeline at the bottom, allowing users to scroll to their desired year and view the architecture of that time. Each building on the map is a clickable link which enables users to view additional photos and information about that specific building.
Intent
Space and Place Over Time
Building History, successfully accomplishes its overall goal of showing the changes that the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Mies campus has had over the past decades. The map and sliding timeline are incredibly effective at portraying the massive changes that occurred on the campus over time. The inclusion of both old and new pictures also add to the sense of historical change that has occurred on the campus.
History
Another important goal of the project was to document the important history of the campus as a “Black Metropolis,” that once served as a center of African-American entertainment and commerce. Here the project isn’t as effective. While the old buildings that once made up this important community are portrayed on the map and in their individual pages, not much historical information is given about them. The data that would be necessary for conveying the historical importance of these buildings is severely lacking, and each page is instead given a small one to two sentence bio that fails to truly elucidate what these spaces meant for those that used to occupy them. The way these buildings are shown to be destroyed and replaced by newer academic buildings implies a certain loss of or preservation of their historical importance. But this ends at mere suggestion rather than a fully realized exploration.
Methodologies
Building History clearly indicated which processors and software’s that were utilized to create this project, as seen in the photo below. With the understanding of coding each program and processor used were able to tell the user how each combined into the site given today. Each of these software’s and processors were a digital creation that together made a site that is easy to use on both mobile and desktop versions.
Conclusion
Building History is a project that successfully fulfills the goal of showing the change over time for the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Mies campus. The strengths of the project were that it was user friendly, allowing easy access on both, computers and mobile devices. The map was functional and highly interactive, which made it easy for users to maneuver their way through different years to see which buildings had been removed or built. Building History‘s team also did a fantastic job laying out their methodologies on their about page, for people to see which processors and softwares they used to create this project. Some downfalls for Building History, is that even though they were successful with creating a project that meets their goals, they do not go above and beyond. The narrative for each building is lost. If they had written more information about each building describing what they used to be and what they are now, they could explain how and why those changed happened, giving users more insight on the story of the campus.
All in all, Building History is a well-developed Digital Humanities project. Some users may be disappointed with some aspects of the project being absent, but those that attend, have attended, or work at the Mies campus will find this project useful and beneficial.