Digital layering of the past: mapping the spaces of Belgrade’s forgotten urban memory

Abstract

Understanding and designing cities in a contemporary world goes beyond perceiving their final form. To fully comprehend the complexity of a place’s identity, it is important to go as far back into the past as possible, in order to establish the continuities and cultural practices that have impacted the development of the cities we know today. The places of these practices have mostly disappeared from the perceivable level of the city space, due to the constant process of building and rebuilding, but, thanks to digital media, it is possible not only to digitalize data about the past but also to superimpose it on the contemporary urban tissue. This paper aims to explain the methodology of studying historical urban spaces with the help of di erent GIS programs or photo editing software. The paper is divided into three segments: data gathering, methodology of mapping superimposed layers, and potential uses of digitalized maps in di erent aspects and phases of urban planning, design, and heritage studies. The results point to a new interdisciplinary methodology that combines multiple aspects of studying and understanding cities’ pasts and improving their public spaces for heritage presentation in accordance with the New Paradigm of Heritage.

Razumevanje i projektovanje gradova u savremenom svetu prevazilazi posmatranje gradova kroz njihovu finalnu formu. Kako bi se shvatila kompleksnost identiteta mesta, potrebno je istraživanjem ići što dalje u prošlost, kako bi se ustanovili kontinuiteti i kulturološke prakse koje su uticale na razvoj gradova kakve poznajemo danas. Mesta ovih praksi su većinski nestala iz sagledivog spektra gradskih prostora, usled konstantnog građenja i rušenja gradskih celina, ali zahvaljujući digitalnim medijima, moguće je ne samo digitalizovati podatke o prošlosti, već ih i preklopiti i prepoznati kao deo savremenog urbanog tkiva. Cilj rada je da objasni metodologiju istraživanja istorijskih gradskih prostora, uz pomoć različitih GIS programa i softvera za obradu slika. Rad je podeljen u tri segmenta: prikupljanje podataka, metodologiju mapiranja preklopljenih slojeva, i potencijalnu upotrebu digitalizovanih mapa u različitim aspektima urbanističkog planiranja i urbanog dizajna, urbanih studija i heritologije. Rezultati istraživanja upućuju na novu interdisciplinarnu metodologiju koja spaja više aspekata izučavanja i razumevanja mnogobrojnih prošlosti grada, i omogućava unapređenje javnih gradskih prostora, te prezentaciju nasleđa prema principima Nove paradigme.