On-going projects and research perspectives in the Quito study field

Summary report of the Archival City mission to Quito 25 April -5 May 2023

Georges Lomné, principal investigator of the Quito study field and Carole Lamoureux, general coordinator of the Archival City project, carried out a mission to Quito between 25 April and 5 May. This mission was made possible thanks to the financial and logistic support of the French Embassy in Ecuador and of the Universidad Andina Simón Bolivar (UASB). The mission included personal meetings with Quito partners and French diplomatic staff, personal and collaborative working sessions, visits to repositories and museums, and meetings to discuss new collaborations and prospects.

On 27 April, a meeting was held at the UASB to discuss the general progress of the Archival City project and the ongoing projects carried out at the UASB (data papers, archival descriptions of the Catholic workers centre among others). New project proposals were presented and discussed (processing and digitisation of the personal files of the members of the Centro católico de obreros -catholic workers center-, photographic collections of the Instituto Nacional de Patrimonio Cultural -INPC, national institute of cultural heritage- etc). The perspectives after the end of Archival City were also discussed.

On 3 May a meeting was held at the Archivo Metropolitano Histórico (AMH). It was attended by the archive’s staff, Patricio Guerra (former Cronista de la Ciudad of Quito), Guillermo Bustos (UASB), Santiago Cabrera (UASB) and Natasha Sanmartín (UASB). The main topics discussed were the current situation at the AMH (financial means, vacancy of the post of Cronista de la Ciudad), the report on the minutes of the Centro católico de obreros which were processed by Natasha Sanmartín and Santiago Cabrera, and the AMH digitization system which was reactivated in the framework of the Archival City project.

Figure i – Santiago Cabrera, Georges Lomné, Natasha Sanmartín and Guillermo Bustos testing the digitization system of the AMH (3 May 2023). Photo credits : C. Lamoureux.

 

Figure ii – Georges Lomné, Carole Lamoureux, Patricio Guerra, Sofía Granizo and Sonia Merizalde at the AMH (3 May 2023) Photo credits : AMH

 

Figure iii – Santiago Cabrera, Guillermo Bustos and Natasha Sanmartín at the AMH (3 May 2023), Photo credits: AMH

On 4 May a meeting was held at the French Embassy in Ecuador with Frédéric Desagneaux (Ambassador) and Apolline Blanchard (Technical Cooperation Attaché). The lunch break was an opportunity to discuss with Guillermo Bustos, Santiago Cabrera and Rosemarie Terán (UASB) their work within Archival City, as well as the post-Archival City prospects. In the afternoon, C. Lamoureux and G. Lomné visited the Instituto Nacional de Patrimonio Cultural (INPC) in Guápulo (Casa Guápulo). They attended a presentation of the INPC’s initiatives and archives, including technical archives (archaeological excavation files), map library, library, geomatic service, publishing service, photographic collections and photographic database. After the visit, a meeting was held with Catalina Tello Sarmiento (executive director), Daniel González Guzmán (director of knowledge transfer and technology) and Ana María Toro (coordinator of the project of national photography) on potential collaborations between INPC and Archival City, including: the selection of a corpus of old photographs showing squares in the city of Quito, the signature of an agreement between INPC and Archival City.

 

Figure iv – Rosemarie Terán and Guillermo Bustos looking at an Ecuabel report in the technical archives of the INPC (4 May). Photo credits: G. Lomné

 

Figure v- Ana María Toro presenting the photographic collections of the INPC (4 May 2023). Photo credits : G. Lomné.

On 5 May, G. Lomné et C. Lamoureux visited the Casa del Alabado Museum with Carlos Espinosa (Universidad San Francisco de Quito-USFQ). After a presentation of the museum, they attended a meeting with Lucía Durán (executive director of the museum), Estefanía Carrera (educational coordinator) and Carlos Montalvo (conservation and research officer) on the forthcoming installation of the 3D “Quito 1532” in the museum (20 May) and the improvements that will soon be made by the USFQ team (introduction of scans of archaeological artefacts), including the imminent signature of an agreement between Casa del Alabado, Archival City (Gustave Eiffel University) and USFQ.

Several working sessions were held during the mission with Gabriela Arguello, Jeroen Derkinderen, Sophia Checa (PhD students at the UASB) and Erika Bedón (independent researcher) on their data set, archival descriptions and related data papers. On 2 May a working session was organised with Natasha Sanmartín et Santiago Cabrera to discuss the integrations of the archival descriptions of the minutes of the Centro católico de obreros into AtoM.  On the last day of the mission (5 May), C. Lamoureux and G. Lomné met with Tamara Estupiñan (independent researcher) and discussed about the imminent delivery of her INH database and original documentation, and the delivery of the corresponding data paper.

Carole Lamoureux et Annalaura Turiano

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Research workshop in Bologna- 12-13 May 2023

The Archival City-Bologna team is organising a research workshop on 12 and 13 May in partnership with the Archivio di Stato of Bologna.

The first day will be dedicated to the Archival City project and the findings and results of the Bologna research team. A round table and a final discussion will close the day.

The second day will be devoted to the diversity of research on medieval history and sources carried out at the Archvio di Stato Bologna. The presentations will be held in Italian and French.

Click here for the detailed programme.

The Centro Católico de Obreros of Quito- a source for research on the social history of the city and part of the urban heritage

On April 5,  a conference on the archives of the Centro Católico de Obreros (CCO) was held at the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar-Ecuador,  in partnership with the university Gustave Eiffel and the Archivo metropolitano de Historia de Quito. Speakers (including Patricio Guerra, Santiago Cabrera and Natasha Sanmartín, members of the Archival City Project) debated about the importance of the Center as a source for research into Quito’s urban social history and as part of the city’s heritage. The process of conservation and cataloguing of the CCO’s historical archive, resulting from the collaboration between the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar and the Archivo metropolitano de Historia was presented.

First slide of the poster presented by Santiago Cabrera and Natasha Sanmartín

Courtesy of Santiago Cabrera

The CCOQ is one of the oldest workers’ organisations in Quito. It was founded in 1906 by a group of conservative intellectuals under the principles promoted by the Encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891) issued by the Pope Leo XIII. Catholic intellectuals looked for alternatives to the leftist trade union organizations and were inspired by the work of French Catholic centres aimed at developing edifying links between workers.

The CCOQ archive hols a documentary collection of great relevance for the study of the social memory of both Quito and Ecuador. Speakers in the conference underlined the importance of the centre as part of the urban heritage of the city as shown by its geographical position. Indeed, it is located in a highly symbolic position, in the street 24 de mayo, which represents an imaginary border between the heritage space of the city as it is conceived for touristic purposes and the quarters of the historical centre of Quito considered as being popular.

Concerning the documentary collections, the CCOQ minutes (from 1906 until now) are the most important body of documents preserved. The center keeps other relevant sources for the history of workers’ sociability (membership registers, accountancy books, magazines, documents on mutual and cultural activities, posters, etc.). In order to prevent this documentary collection from damage and risks of natural catastrophes, a preservation project has been conceived. It entailed the transfer of 11 linear metres of documentation to the Quito Metropolitan Historical Archive for technical processing.

Digitalisation process at the  Quito Metropolitan Historical Archive

Photo credit: Archivo metropolitano de Historia de Quito

This was possible thanks to the commitment of the City Chronicler, Patricio Guerra, Georges Lomné (Principal investigator of Archival City Ecuador), Guillermo Bustos (coordinator Archival City UASB-E) and Santiago Cabrera Hanna (coordinator of the intervention project Actas de Sesiones del CCOQ). The project consisted of three main phases: the description of the documentary collection, the preventive conservation process, and the digitalisation  which are detailed in a forthcoming data paper co-authored by Santiago Cabrera Hanna and Natasha Sanmartín Monteros  who was responsible for the technical treatment.

The recovery of the CCO-Q minutes represents an important step in safeguarding  Quito’s working class cultural heritage and facilitating academic research. One of the challenges is the recognition of the CCO-Q archives as an integral part of the documentary heritage and social history of the city of Quito.  The work done makes this documentary heritage more accessible to national and international researchers and users.

 

Komson Teeraparbwong- Studying the change and transformation of Chiang Mai

Komson Teeraparbwong is an Assistant Professor and head of the International Program (B.Sc. in Integrating Design in Emerging Architecture) at the Faculty of Architecture, Chiang Mai University.  He graduated from the Faculty of Architecture, Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok and GSAPP, Columbia University respectively, and conducts his Ph.D. research at the Architectural Association and ENSA-Paris Bellville.

His research focuses on the relationship between architecture and the urban realm, particularly the issue of socio-spatial morphology conflict. Using Chiang Mai as his main fieldwork in order to understand complex issues of urbanism, he has researched on many areas of the city including Wua-lai area, the old city centre and sites proposed for UNESCO World Heritage status, as well as the newly HIP area of Nimmanhemin. Continuer la lecture de Komson Teeraparbwong- Studying the change and transformation of Chiang Mai

Gabriela Argüello Torres- The rural parish of Calderón and the urban expansion of Quito, 1920-1980

Gabriela Argüello is a PhD candidate at the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar – Ecuador. Her dissertation focuses on the periphery of the city of Quito and takes as a case study the rural parish of Calderón, between the 1920s and 1980s. The main objective is to study the historical process of structuring and incorporation of this peripheral parish (the most populated in the country) into the urban expansion of Quito.

Continuer la lecture de Gabriela Argüello Torres- The rural parish of Calderón and the urban expansion of Quito, 1920-1980

Jeroen Derkinderen Lombeida : a history of Andeanism in Ecuador, 1940-1980

Jeroen Derkinderen Lombeida is a PhD student at the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar in Quito. After studying history and political science at the Université Libre of Brussels, he started a thesis on the history of Andeanism in Ecuador (1940 to 1980) under the supervision of Guillermo Bustos. Continuer la lecture de Jeroen Derkinderen Lombeida : a history of Andeanism in Ecuador, 1940-1980

Clément Carnielli -Taxation, citizenship and inequalities during the second commune of Bologna, 1376-1402

Clément Carnielli has recently defended a PhD dissertation in medieval history entitled “Taxation, citizenship and inequalities during the second commune of Bologna, 1376-1402”, at the Gustave-Eiffel University under the supervision of Giuliano Milani. He is currently a lecturer (Attaché temporaire d’enseignement et de recherche ) at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris.  Within Archival City, he is a member of the Bologna study-field.

Continuer la lecture de Clément Carnielli -Taxation, citizenship and inequalities during the second commune of Bologna, 1376-1402

Meeting on the archives of the Centro Católico de Obreros, Quito

5th April 2023, Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar

On Wednesday 5 April at 5pm, a meeting will be held at the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar (Área de Historia) in Quito on the archives of the Centro Católico de Obreros in partnership with Archival City and the Archivo metropolitano de Historia de Quito. The CCOQ was founded on March 18, 1906 by a group of conservative intellectuals from the city of Quito who looked for alternatives to the leftist trade union organizations. It was inspired by the work of French Catholic centers and  aimed at developing edifying links between workers. 

The CCOQ archive has a documentary collection of great relevance for the study of the social memory of both Quito and Ecuador. The department of History of the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar and the Archivo metropolitano de Historia have been collaborating on the conservation of theses archives, in partnership with Archival city. The intervention process includes registration, conservation, and inventory.

Storage & labeling

Conservation status record

Photos by Santiago Cabrera Hanna & Natasha Sanmartín Monteros

The event on the 5th April proposes a dialogue on the importance of  the Centro Católico de Obreros (CCO) as a source for research into Quito’s urban social history and as part of the city’s heritage. The results of the process of conservation and cataloguing of the CCO’s historical archive will be presented. Speakers will include Patricio Guerra, Santiago Cabrera and Natasha Sanmartín, members of the Archival City Projet Quito.

The meeting will be broadcasted on the facebook page of the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar and that of the Archivo Histórico de la Ciudad. It will also be recorded.

More information on the event can be found here.

 

Updates from the Jerusalem study field

The 3 modelling of the Maghrebi Quarter: a project underway

The Jerusalem research team focuses on history of the Maghrebi quarter, which dates to the late twelfth century, shortly after Salah al-Din (Saladin) conquered Jerusalem (1187). The founder of the Ayyubid dynasty launched an ambitious plan to repopulate the Holy City after the crusades. Many religious endowments were established whose purpose was to welcome, house and care for pilgrims of Maghrebi origins on their way to Mecca. Over eight centuries, these endowments continued to perform their function until the 1960s when the quarter was razed during the night of 10 to 11 June 1967 by Israeli bulldozers to make way for an expansive plaza in front of the Western Wall. The work of Vincent Lemire and the rest of the team aims to retrace the social and urban history of the quarter, which is both a local and a Mediterranean history.

Fig. 1-View of the Maghrebi quarter, early 1930s

Source: © Matson Photograph Collection, Library of Congress

Fig. 2- The empty plaza and the rubble of the Maghrebi quarter (southern and eastern part) in 1967

source: © Gilles Caron

One of the ambitions (and deliverables) of the project is the 3D modelling of the buildings of the Maghrebi quarter. This project pursues a twofold aim: firstly, it is a tool aiming at helping visually restoring the erased past of the quarter and transforming it into the historical memory of the urban space and the global heritage of Jerusalem, by linking this 3d model with the archives gathered. Secondly, the three-dimensional modelling project in Jerusalem has also potential in developing strategies and tools for taking up similar projects in other places in the future and in other contexts.

The project is being carried by a team of historians, architects, and digital developers. It is based on the archives and historical sources collected by the team (and described on AToM) during the Open Jerusalem project (2014-2019) and the first phase of the Archival City Project (2019-2022).

The modelling work is realised by an Italian agency, 3D research Experience Technology, specialised in modelling, in collaboration with the Center for Research on Digital Humanities of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. The work is scheduled to be completed by the end of April 2023. Thus, it will be possible to show an overview of the work done during the Archival City mission to Jerusalem in June (13-18 June).

Fig. 3-The cadastral 1936 map in 2D vertical, then in 2D at 45°

 

Fig. 4-The cubes of the Maghrebi quarter that rise on the 1936 cadastral map

The team met recently to tackle different methodological issues related to the 3D modelling. A list of buildings to be modelled (the most and best documented ones, for which the team has multiples surveys and sources) was agreed upon : eleven buildings including the Dar Abu Saud (fig. 5) a housing complex where Yasser Arafat lived for some years during his childhood in the 1930s.

Fig. 5- Maghrebi Quarter, Dar Abu Saud, and the restoration site of the Dome of the Rock, January 1964

Source: © EBAF

Several other methodological issues were addressed, for instance the question of the type of textures to be chosen for the modelling of the building’s facades, as it is closely related to the type of stones that adorned the facades (the objective being to be as faithful as possible with the architectural characteristics of the neighbourhood).

The question of the representation of the vegetation was also addressed, both in its strict reconstruction and in the location of the known and  visible vegetation in the district according to photographic sources and aerial views taken from a zeppelin.

More specific details were also tackled, such as the appearance of the windows and the colour of the roofs, which is supposed to be lighter than the colour of the walls due to frequent restoration by the inhabitants of the neighbourhood (these latter points will be discussed again during the next meetings).     

Fig. 6- Screenshots of the 3D modelling underway

Other methodological choices concern the levels of the buildings: while several sources, whether written or visual, do not indicate the number of floors of the buildings, we know thanks to a list of the waqf drawn up in 1959[1] that a third of the houses in the district had one floor(or, rarely, two), while two thirds consisted of a ground floor and sometimes a terrace (the elevation of the street above certain buildings complicates the understanding).

This is particularly true for the Madrasa al-Afdaliyya, which was probably constituted of a single level, itself composed of several superimposed floors (all dated to the late 12th -early 13th century) according to Benjamin Z. Kedar, Shlomit Weksler-Bdolah and Tawfiq Da’ādli in their article on the Madrasa[2]. The hundreds of pictures we gathered helped a lot for this decisive point  (fig. 7).

Fig. 7- The dome of the Madrasa Afdaliyya, lower right, ca. 1910

Source: © EBAF

Finally, a major issue that is being discussed with the technical team is the production of a “street view” option and a VR (virtual reality) in the reconstruction, which are closely linked to the project’s ambition to target a wide audience. Several options are currently under evaluation by the team.The implementation of these functionalities will have an impact on the kind of platform chosen for the dissemination of the reconstruction (web viewer on a website, free downloadable application, full immersive 3d glasses etc.).

Moreover, short descriptive texts will serve as textual support for each of the modelled building. They will provide historical, archaeological, and architectural details on the buildings, while informing readers on their social and/or religious function over time.  The texts will also include links to the archival descriptions on AToM and the Archival City Open Data platform (currently under construction on Nakala) as well as to other transmedia contents.

The purpose is twofold: first, to make the sources on which the modelling work was based more visible and accessible, second, to connect and bridge the Archival City project with other existing digital archives projects on the Maghrebi Quarter which have been launched both by the international scientific community and grassroot organizations.

In January 2023, Raphaël Banc-Lévêque joined the team. He collaborates on the preparation of the textual material for the 3D modelling and is engaged in the writing of a data paper on the 3D modelling.

 

Annalaura Turiano & Raphaël Banc-Lévêque

 

[1] Islamic Research and Heritage Revival Institute, Abu-Dis, call no. 0/1959/1.19/2.

[2] Kedar, B. Z., S. Weksler-Bdolah, and T. Daʾadli. 2012. “The Madrasa Afdaliyya / Maqâm Al-Shaykh ʾId: An Example of Ayyubid Architecture in Jerusalem.” Revue Biblique, 119, no. 2: 271–87.

Conference in Quito 15-16 march 2023

On March 15 and 16, 2023 will be held at the University of San Francisco de Quito a two days conference devoted to the Inca Quito and organized by Carlos Ramiro Espinosa Fernandez de Cordova professor at USFQ and member of the Quito Archival City’s Team.

The first day will be devoted to the presentation of the 3D modelling of Quito 1532. On the second day, the presentations will revolve around the documentation and data covering 100 years of history of the city, a transition period characterized by the Inca occupation and the Spanish conquest.

Programme of the first day

Programme of the second day

Seminar Documenting the Ordinary Cities in Southeast Asia. Chiang Mai and Bangkok 19-24 February 2023

The Archival City Chiang Mai Team organises a week-long seminar entitled “Documenting the ordinary cities in Southeast Asia”, in partnership with several local and international institutions. The seminar will take place in Chiang Mai and Bangkok from February 19 to 25.

Through presentations, panel discussions, and visits to specific neighborhoods and archival repositories, the seminar will focus on the sources,  methods, and digital tools for documenting the ordinary city and its heritage.

ProgramSeminarCM-BGK_19-22February

Archival City Research Workshop March- September 2023

The Archival City research workshop is aimed at Master’s students (M1 and M2) who wish to reflect on the history, nature and stakes of urban sources, data or archives.

The main objective of the workshop is to give students an overview of the methodological and conceptual achievements of the international Archival City programme, as a complement and support to their research.

The workshop sessions will aim both to support students in the production and description of their research corpus and to provide them with bibliographic, conceptual and methodological tools on the world of urban archives in the digital age.

A final workshop will be held in autumn 2023.
It will be public, and will be part of the activities of the Urban Futures Labex.

Presentation

Symposium: Ghost Archives and Shadow Records

PDF (in English) Presentation in French

Summary Programme (in French)

Detailed Programme (in French)

Archival City is a Tremplin project selected by the I-site Future of Gustave Eiffel University and funded over the period 2019-2023. Its aims are to propose new modes of intelligibility, visualization and use of urban archives, from six experimental and non-exclusive fields: Algiers, Paris, Jerusalem, Bologna, Quito and Chiang Mai. More information on Archival-City here: https://archivalcity.hypotheses.org

Archival City is organizing its fall 2022 symposium on the theme “Ghost Archives and Shadow Records”. It will be held at the Archives nationales (Pierrefite-sur-Seine site, metro line 13 Saint-Denis Université – auditorium and “salles de commission 1 et 2”) on November 17 and 18, 2022.

Continuer la lecture de Symposium: Ghost Archives and Shadow Records

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