Design and History Program: Using digital technology for documentation, conservation and dissemination

The Design & History Program aims to show the potential and future developments of digital technologies for documentation, conservation and dissemination of heritage. Using a pilot project for the Golden Room of the Mauritshuis—a 3D print featuring the original colours of the room—as the starting point, this workshop explores the implications of Digital Technology for Documentation, Conservation and Dissemination from 3D scans to 3D prints. It aims to bring together research and projects that connect digital tools with ethical questions, historical inquiry, theories and practices of documentation, conservation and dissemination.

This first roundtable brought together stakeholders from academia and practice to collect ideas and to identify challenges and needs beyond the state of the art with the objective to develop and prepare for joint grant proposals. The event was organized in collaboration between the Museum Mauritshuis, the research program Design&History@TU Delft and was supported by the National Research Organisation NWO as a match-making event to develop collaboration for future research projects.

During the workshop day Edwin Buysen (Maurithshuis) welcomed the 40 participants from academia and heritage institutions and presented some of the collaborative projects that the Mauritshuis has been involved in in the recent years. In her introduction, Carola Hein (TU Delft) explained the collaboration to produce the 3D-print of the wall finishings of the Golden Room which was exhibited in the Golden Room the same day. Tino Mager (TU Delft) moderated the program and introduced the afternoon session.

The keynote speech by Lorinda Wong (Getty Conservation Institute) brought up several questions about the reasons of creating replicas and their place in conservation of heritage: “Are our reasons for commissioning and creating replicas as heritage professionals the same as for potential users? Do we know how a replica will be used, viewed and valued by the various stakeholders now and into the future?”

Eight presentations about ‘3D Scanning’, ‘3D Printing’ and ‘Dissemination of Digital Tools’ presented detailed studies about the technology of scanning and printing to the wider areas about the digital database for audience development.

In the final discussion moderated by Uta Potgessier (TU Delft) some points were raised by the participants about 3D technology and the creation of replicas. ‘Authenticity and Value’, ‘Rules, Ethical Issues, Copyrights and Ownership’ and ‘People Engagement’ were among the mentioned topics.

A second workshop has been held in June 2019 to stimulate the discussion of new research issues that will be introduced into a larger project proposal.

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Pictures were taken by Johannes Düber