Final Report Summary - MUSOMED (MUtual SOurces on Modern MEDiterranean Architecture: towards an open and shared system)
The main objective of the MUSOMED project was to address data access deficiencies on modern architecture in the Mediterranean by using the latest information technologies, within the framework of a EUMED partnership associating scholars from France, Italy and Tunisia.
For most Europeans, tangible heritage in the Mediterranean is primarily evocative of archaeological remains or earthen architecture. A Roman amphora was typically chosen as the logo of the EC-funded Euromed heritage program in 2002. This wide-spread image does little justice to the wealth of modern architecture that can be encountered in most urban centres of Mediterranean countries. Beyond the medieval structures still surviving in historic nuclei, fine and diverse buildings from the 19th and 20th century - from neo-classic and eclectic designs to late art deco and stream line - abound in all cities. The legacy of pre-colonial and colonial European engagement in the region, this cultural heritage is an asset that is attracting increased local attention, as current initiatives by concerned actors in Casablanca, Cairo, Beirut or Istanbul demonstrate. The issue is of relevance to Europe as well, since it offers concrete and extensive material to reflect upon the past diffusion and present appropriation of European culture abroad. It forms moreover a rich field to study historical and cultural phenomena of supra-national or trans-national scale. Beyond academia, it represents an opportunity to sustain intercultural dialogue with neighbouring countries through a topic of common interest.
The specific objective of the project was the feasibility study (including cost-effectiveness and institutional framework) of a prototype of research infrastructure (digital platform) in open-source, easing remote access to relevant and accurate heterogeneous documentary data, and allowing for their cross searching. The structure and organisation of the platform were to be defined through a series of case studies, consortium discussions and experts meetings. The knowledge-based approach was grounded on the scrutinising of the current digital offer on the topic, and the study of the legal questions involved in the use of the diverse types of relevant data concerned.
The objective of the project was primarily methodological, with the view of elaborating new tools allowing for the retrieving and cross-searching of heterogeneous data on a given topic, involving visual material and multilingual records. The envisioned tool, termed 'platform' or 'platform prototype', was initially intended to deal with online sources of various natures (visual, textual, structured or semistructured), type (collection of images, archives inventories, buildings databases, full-text contents, etc.) and provenance (institutional and non-institutional websites). The challenge was to conceptualise a system able to identify, cross-search, give coherence to, and validate a series of heterogeneous, eventually multilingual, online sources of varied formats. It encompassed serious technological challenges. The concrete testing carried out during the first phase of the project, and the several working meetings held with a number of experts (art historians, archaeologists, archivists, information officers, database technology and system-building specialists, cultural heritage managers), helped establishing the specific data organisation model adapted to the topic. During the second phase of the project, the specific languages and components of the foreseen platform offering simple and homogeneous access to semi-structured data corresponding to the shared model and based on the principle of data mediation, were selected after a new phase of testing. The work achieved on the issue of data mediation led to chose the relevant languages for each component of the platform.
Two major findings have resulted from the project. One was that architecture is also a semantic sphere, and as such belongs not only to tangible heritage (to which it is generally related), but indeed to intangible heritage. In the course of the study done in partnership with a Tunisian and an Italian team, it soon appeared that architectural objects are polysemic items, that can receive different labels according to time, place, locutor or source, and that these lexical variations are per se worth taking into account as explicit indicators of distinctive perceptions and representations. A second important related finding was that rather than working towards data standardisation - the usual procedure in database making - what is needed in the field at this stage is means to adapt search engines to relevant data, rather than adapting data to search engines. In other words, the project helped define new technological challenges: the building of shared spaces allowing for the mediation of information on a distant-access basis and the adaptability of search engines to heterogeneous, dispersed and little-structured data. Research input during the project revealed that the creation of a specialized digital repository with different levels of restricted access, where willing researchers' could store and share primary information and semi-elaborated free-copyrighted material, was a desirable initiative, and represented a preliminary move towards the collaborative building of digital archives of architecture in the modern Mediterranean.
The impact of the project was many-fold. It concerned both frontier and applied research, and furthermore, IT knowhow, the cultural heritage sector at large, as well as policy-making. At fundamental research level, important results were the enhancement of working methodologies in the field of humanities and the strengthening of new collaborative communities and of international scientific cooperation. Shared platforms are still rare in humanities; the project and its following-up are likely to produce feedback on the topic. At applied level, the production of thesauri and methods to deal with Mediterranean toponyms, and their varying transliterations over time, are crucial to any European librarian or archive curator keeping Mediterranean material, i.e. related to North Africa or the Middle East, and in particular in middle-size institutions that cannot afford specialised librarians. The technological challenges identified within the project were of interest to IT enterprises, and may result in opportunities for joint work. Easing access to archive material in the field of architecture and construction has appeared of notable interest for architectural firms involved in conservation and rehabilitation, as well as for educational purposes in architectural schools. At policy level, fostering scientific cooperation on issues of common relevance to Europe and its neighbouring Mediterranean countries is fruitful for intercultural dialogue.
For most Europeans, tangible heritage in the Mediterranean is primarily evocative of archaeological remains or earthen architecture. A Roman amphora was typically chosen as the logo of the EC-funded Euromed heritage program in 2002. This wide-spread image does little justice to the wealth of modern architecture that can be encountered in most urban centres of Mediterranean countries. Beyond the medieval structures still surviving in historic nuclei, fine and diverse buildings from the 19th and 20th century - from neo-classic and eclectic designs to late art deco and stream line - abound in all cities. The legacy of pre-colonial and colonial European engagement in the region, this cultural heritage is an asset that is attracting increased local attention, as current initiatives by concerned actors in Casablanca, Cairo, Beirut or Istanbul demonstrate. The issue is of relevance to Europe as well, since it offers concrete and extensive material to reflect upon the past diffusion and present appropriation of European culture abroad. It forms moreover a rich field to study historical and cultural phenomena of supra-national or trans-national scale. Beyond academia, it represents an opportunity to sustain intercultural dialogue with neighbouring countries through a topic of common interest.
The specific objective of the project was the feasibility study (including cost-effectiveness and institutional framework) of a prototype of research infrastructure (digital platform) in open-source, easing remote access to relevant and accurate heterogeneous documentary data, and allowing for their cross searching. The structure and organisation of the platform were to be defined through a series of case studies, consortium discussions and experts meetings. The knowledge-based approach was grounded on the scrutinising of the current digital offer on the topic, and the study of the legal questions involved in the use of the diverse types of relevant data concerned.
The objective of the project was primarily methodological, with the view of elaborating new tools allowing for the retrieving and cross-searching of heterogeneous data on a given topic, involving visual material and multilingual records. The envisioned tool, termed 'platform' or 'platform prototype', was initially intended to deal with online sources of various natures (visual, textual, structured or semistructured), type (collection of images, archives inventories, buildings databases, full-text contents, etc.) and provenance (institutional and non-institutional websites). The challenge was to conceptualise a system able to identify, cross-search, give coherence to, and validate a series of heterogeneous, eventually multilingual, online sources of varied formats. It encompassed serious technological challenges. The concrete testing carried out during the first phase of the project, and the several working meetings held with a number of experts (art historians, archaeologists, archivists, information officers, database technology and system-building specialists, cultural heritage managers), helped establishing the specific data organisation model adapted to the topic. During the second phase of the project, the specific languages and components of the foreseen platform offering simple and homogeneous access to semi-structured data corresponding to the shared model and based on the principle of data mediation, were selected after a new phase of testing. The work achieved on the issue of data mediation led to chose the relevant languages for each component of the platform.
Two major findings have resulted from the project. One was that architecture is also a semantic sphere, and as such belongs not only to tangible heritage (to which it is generally related), but indeed to intangible heritage. In the course of the study done in partnership with a Tunisian and an Italian team, it soon appeared that architectural objects are polysemic items, that can receive different labels according to time, place, locutor or source, and that these lexical variations are per se worth taking into account as explicit indicators of distinctive perceptions and representations. A second important related finding was that rather than working towards data standardisation - the usual procedure in database making - what is needed in the field at this stage is means to adapt search engines to relevant data, rather than adapting data to search engines. In other words, the project helped define new technological challenges: the building of shared spaces allowing for the mediation of information on a distant-access basis and the adaptability of search engines to heterogeneous, dispersed and little-structured data. Research input during the project revealed that the creation of a specialized digital repository with different levels of restricted access, where willing researchers' could store and share primary information and semi-elaborated free-copyrighted material, was a desirable initiative, and represented a preliminary move towards the collaborative building of digital archives of architecture in the modern Mediterranean.
The impact of the project was many-fold. It concerned both frontier and applied research, and furthermore, IT knowhow, the cultural heritage sector at large, as well as policy-making. At fundamental research level, important results were the enhancement of working methodologies in the field of humanities and the strengthening of new collaborative communities and of international scientific cooperation. Shared platforms are still rare in humanities; the project and its following-up are likely to produce feedback on the topic. At applied level, the production of thesauri and methods to deal with Mediterranean toponyms, and their varying transliterations over time, are crucial to any European librarian or archive curator keeping Mediterranean material, i.e. related to North Africa or the Middle East, and in particular in middle-size institutions that cannot afford specialised librarians. The technological challenges identified within the project were of interest to IT enterprises, and may result in opportunities for joint work. Easing access to archive material in the field of architecture and construction has appeared of notable interest for architectural firms involved in conservation and rehabilitation, as well as for educational purposes in architectural schools. At policy level, fostering scientific cooperation on issues of common relevance to Europe and its neighbouring Mediterranean countries is fruitful for intercultural dialogue.
