IASIS project is implemented in the framework of the Postdoctoral Research Project by Athina Chroni, Dr. Archaeologist, supervised by Professor Andreas Georgopoulos, Laboratory of Photogrammetry-School of Rural and Surveying Engineering-National Technical University of Athens.
 

The aim of this Postdoctoral Research Project  has been the 3D digital approach for specific landmarks of Ioannina, a city at the north-western corner of Greece, thus figuring its special multicultural profile, as it was formed during its Ottoman period, i.e., 1430–1913, and, also, restoring the collective memory of the city. 
Ioannina, already until the year 1430, the starting year of its Ottoman period, had gained a leading commercial role, being at the crossway of trade routes, and known, consequently, an economic and spiritual flourishment. The following centuries, until 1913, the ending year of its Ottoman period, the coexistence and cohabitation of people of diverse religions, ethnicities and cultural identities have shaped a unique, highly fruitful and creative multicultural character for the city, which «belongs to the category of cities that were developed after the expansion of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkan countries, cities with a significant urban past. In these cities the Ottoman influence was partial, but clear», according to Kanetakis, (1) the Greek architect-researcher. 

The main objectives of the research project have been:

• To study and point out the alterations of the city’s urban web during the Ottoman period.

• To study and point out the multicultural physiognomy of the city.

By applying the methodology of: 

• Documentation on multiple scientific fields (i.e., bibliographic, optical, architectural and more)

• Landmarks’ digital representation and selective 3D reconstruction for highlighting cultural evidence and relics of the city’s Ottoman period, 

and making use of new technologies.

The research project has focused on specific landmarks, public or private, religious or secular, conventional or more elaborate, in which the ever-evolving dynamics of the city have been depicted. The landmarks come from all the three cultures of the city: Christian, Jewish or Muslim, often stratigraphically and chronologically succeeding one another, thus creating an interesting cultural palimpsest. 

The research project is articulated on two main components: extensive, inter-scientific, documentation which contributes and leads to landmarks’ digital representation. Given that most of the landmark buildings have been destroyed due to natural disasters and the unbridled modern constructions, all the available historiographic, bibliographic and archaeological  information has been collected, analysed, cross-examined and the outcome of our scientific findings has been digitally processed and combined with the study of cartographic and topographic data, as well as with optical depictions such as engravings, paintings, postcards, terrestrial and aerial  imagery, of the oldest possible date they can be traced. As a result, the location of Ottoman era landmarks within the modern city’s urban web, the 3D digital reconstruction for a number of them and their incorporation in an interactive G.I.S. has been possible.

Under the intention to achieve more interaction of the project with the local community, digital signage is going to be set at the specific sites, where the landmark buildings used to stand and have been now 3D digitally developed, furnishing relevant information through an application for android devices and, also, giving access to a related web-based platform, as well as to a respective web-based virtual museum exhibiting text, image and sound material in the context of restoring the sense of the old city, while cultural walks within the urban web, related to the project’s axis are also proposed, thus connecting the intangible (digital) with the tangible (physical space). 

Open access for all the digital products afore-mentioned, has been the basis of the research project under the perspective of “inviting” the citizens to take an active role in cultural heritage issues, thus reinforcing and restoring the democratic dimension of culture.

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(1): Kanetakis G.: The Castle: Contribution to the Urban History of Ioannina. Doctoral Thesis, Published by the Technical Chamber of Greece, Athens, (1994), pp. 50-51.