ICTs for Narrating Architecture Archives: The Theses of Gaetano Cima’s Students

The archives of architectural drawings represent an invaluable testimony of the teaching practices and methods used in the academic sphere throughout the history of architecture teaching. A heritage whose protection and valorisation has as its first step the digitisation of the physical documents; this digitisation cannot, however, be limited to mere reproduction, on pain of inheriting from the physical support the limitations that characterise it in terms of limited comprehension for the layman. The creation of digital reproductions must therefore be accompanied by tools for the informative enrichment of drawings, with cultural-historical data often dispersed in multiple archives, and with new drawings and models that help their critical reading. The following contribution presents the development of a prototype of a web-based consultation portal to protect and narrate the final results of the theses of the students of Gaetano Cima, the main protagonist of the architectural and urban scene in 19th-century Cagliari.