Interpreting Indiana: Augmented Reality (original) (raw)

2018

Abstract

While the modernist movement remains an integral epoch in American design heritage, its monuments have only recently become the subject of conservation and public interpretation. The city of Columbus, Indiana features several of these studies by internationally renowned architects and landscape architects, including Eliel and Eero Saarinen, Harry Weese, and Dan Kiley. While the Modernist movement in the United States has provided significant discourse for the architectural context as part of a theoretical tableau, the greater understanding of how to interpret and conserve these buildings for a modern public has not been previously explored. This paper will address geocached augmented reality as a way to disseminate information and conserve/ interpret significant architectural artefacts as part of the current Age of Digital Empowerment. Through digital technologies, the city can be reconstructed from archival documents, representing different phases of architectural design, while providing a non-invasive interpretation strategy to inform a diverse, international public about the buildings and their histories. Through a digital translator and embedded archival paper, audio, and video ephemera, the application enhances individual engagement and empowerment, encouraging continuing interest and opening up a user base beyond on-site signage. The technology allows the public to experience the architecture three-dimensionally and remotely, and can be modified easily to include the most recent information. The Columbus Indiana Augmented Reality Project provides a test case for this new methodology in interpretation in the form of a combination mobile application and web platform. Through the application, the user becomes the explorer, navigating the heritage of the city, selecting personalized information through a democratic and equalized method. As the historic city considers itself an incubator for emerging technologies, the augmented reality application contextually aligns with a pedagogical practice in the city, and also provides a framework for a digital publically-accessible research database and accumulating archive of information.

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