Educational Illustration of the Historical City, Education Citizenship, and Sustainable Heritage
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This interesting article explains, through two cases of study, the development of didactic techniques, based on new historical iconographies, developed from the technologies of the moment, that contribute to presenting the urban heritage in an understandable way to broad sectors of the population, and that the resulting greater knowledge affects a greater citizen quality, preservation and sustainability of the heritage.
The two cases are in Catalonia (Spain):
- The archaeological site of “el Born” in Barcelona
- The medieval city of la Seu d’Urgell (Lleida)
The text refers that “the iconographic models generated could easily be evaluated qualitatively from questionnaires and interviews with heritage, education, tourism professionals, and policy and governance decision-makers. Perceptions of this type of material, and its possibilities,
have been well considered” (p.19). There is no data in the article about these items. I recommend including them in this manuscript.
The two cases of study are fundamental in the results. However, they are not mentioned in the tittle or in the abstract. I recommend including them in the tittle and/or in the abstract.
There is minor error in the title section 2.6 (The archaeological sote (site))
Author Response
Thank you very much for your considerations. In this regard, and following your indications, we have added a clear reference to the two cases presented at the end of the abstract.
On the other hand, and in reference to the comment on the evaluation (p. 19), we have added an explanatory text that you can read below.
We remain at your disposal for any clarification.
Sincerely
The authors
End of abstract
The case studies considered in this work are two of the most emblematic developed by the DIDPATRI group: the archaeological site of El Born in Barcelona, and the medieval site of La Seu de Urgell, in the Catalan Pyrenees.
End of 19 pag
In the case of "el Born", twenty-four technicians in heritage and tourism, twenty-four Primary and Secondary education teachers and twelve political leaders and governance technicians were consulted. In the case of La Seu d'Urgell, the consultations involved twenty experts in Heritage and Tourism, twenty teachers of Primary and Secondary education, and twelve political leaders and governance technicians. In a complementary way, historians and archaeologists were also consulted. The perceptions of this type of material, and its possibilities were well considered. On the other hand, the materials were received by the market (cultural tourism, museography, cultural industries), which implied an explicit evaluation. The iconography was successfully applied to very different products, on different supports and for different functions.
And finally:
2.6. The archaeological site of “el Born” in Barcelona
Reviewer 2 Report
This is a quality article that brings new knowledge to the scientific debate on the sustainable preservation of cities' cultural heritage. The development process of didactic iconographic models in the historical and heritage dimensions of two cities through unique techniques and using easily accessible technologies is presented. Methodologically have contributed to improving, in the key of sustainability, the knowledge of these historical urban environments and respect for heritage.
Evidence of the implementation process of these models is offered through two experimental cases. The first is the recreation of the Born in Barcelona. It is a unique archaeological site of about 8,000 m2 located in the old town of Barcelona. The second experimental project is the recreation-reconstruction of the Pyrenean city of Seu d’Urgell (Lleida) during the 14th century.
The authors situate the development of these didactic iconographic models as a response to safeguard cultural heritage, and the importance of quality education for the promotion of sustainable cities. The authors present a rigorous study of historical sources from which they have developed new iconographies using 3D spatial representation that has allowed the recreation of textures and volumes of archaeological and historical urban spaces, as well as complementing these hyper-realistic iconographies with 2D environmental, furniture, and anthropic elements. The result is new didactic iconographies that respect scientific and historical criteria.
This study offers useful knowledge for the replication of the design and development process of hyper-realistic iconographies of historical landscape or a certain urban heritage both for educational use in school didactic materials and for other museum and tourist uses, as well as opening up a range of possibilities for virtual museums and virtual teaching.
All sections of the article are correctly written. These are coherent and consistent with the results presented. However, some of the subsections are excessively long for the type of scientific article usually published in Sustainability. It is not absolutely necessary, but if the authors consider it, they could reduce some of these subsections. This would make it easier to follow the thread of the main contribution. For example, it is not necessary such an exhaustive historical contextualization of the use of Cartographic representation and didactic representation (subsection 2.1) or 2.2. These subsections have been written as if they were a state of the art rather than a methodological section. However, I understand that due to the typology of articles in Social Sciences Didactics, it is pertinent to do it in this way.
I congratulate the authors for the article. Good luck.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your considerations. In this regard, and following your instructions, we have proceeded to cut out parts that are not essential for understanding the text in the referenced sections.
We remain at your disposal for any clarification.
Sincerely
The authors
2.1. Cartographic representation and didactic reprentation
Cartographic techniques have seen great advances since the 19th century through the incorporation of the system of level curves and the development of software from photo planes and satellite photography during the 20th century [21, 22]. The maps of the present collect historical determinants and the maps of the past inform us of a certain place, in a certain temporal moment. We can also approximate heritage or historical urban spaces, based on cartography, which can use different media (printed on paper, digital, etc.) and different scales, according to the dimensions of the urban space to be represented. However, planimetry requires a high level of abstraction to be understood as the structures are represented from a vertical perpendicular point of view and are generally replaced by contours that usually do not have chronological references. It is not easy to make a historical reading of the landscape from cartography. For wide sectors of users, and for school users, maps and plans are not optimal didactic tools to imagine what an urban space was like in another time, or what was the arrangement and function of the urban heritage.
Various strategies were developed to access users with few possibilities to interpret cartography, as well as to compensate for the systemic deficit of cartography to represent height and the historical time factor. During the 16th century, Wyngaerde produced magnificent series of views of cities from an oblique aerial perspective. He believed that from this point of view sufficiently holistic visions were provided that provided a rough idea of the city [23]. The pictures and engravings with bird’s eye view of the cities continued to be cultivated during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries [24, 25]. Later, during the 19th and 20th centuries, other strategies began to be used: panoramas, accurate engravings, oblique aerial photographs obtained from balloons..., to show the cities of the moment or aspects of their urban evolution. The passion for the generation of understandable images of historical urbanism reached very important levels in Mussolini’s Italy. This one tried to legitimize his regime from the idealization of ancient Rome. Mussolini promoted multiple didactic images of archaeological spaces by publishing publications that compared different points of view of the city with reconstructions of the same space in Roman times.He also built, in 1933, a gigantic model of Rome on a scale of 1:250; work that began the archaeologist Italo Gismondi and that can still be contemplated today in the Museum of the Roman Civilitta, in Rome [26].
More recently, the experiences made with an oblique perspective were systematized.Ssome magazines aimed at the general public, such as National Geographic, proceeded to develop oblique iconographies that recreated and reconstructed archaeological spaces and cities of another time from Infogrames. These types of journals financed scientific expeditions and were concerned with making the scope of their work known to the general public [27, 28]. During the 1970s, these experiences influenced the generation of cases and explicitly didactic models. Authors such as D. Macaulay surprised the world by offering, from relatively simple drawings, the evolution of an imagined model of a Roman city [29]. Equally extraordinary iconographers such as Jean Claude Golvin offered magnificent views of the cities and heritage artifacts of the ancient world [30]. Also noteworthy are the contributions made during the 1990s by F.X. Hernàndez and J. Ballonga [31], who, for the first time, illustrate evolutionary models of cities based on broad chronological paths, with successive enlargements of the same city. These effects were achieved from a perspective approach based on the establishment of very distant vanishing points on the horizon.All these authors, who focused especially on didactic iconography and urban heritage, developed their models and their didactic proposals based on a traditional technology: pencil, nib, and watercolor. But somehow, they prepared the ground for what came to be called “virtual archaeology”, which focused mainly on the recreation of ancient urban complexes [32].
2.2. The inadequacy of “virtual archaeology”
In the early 21st century, the development of CGI (Computed-Generated Imagery) systems also influenced the world of archaeology. The so-called “virtual archaeology” was developed, which consisted of making imaginary surveys and recreations of archaeological spaces, more or less grounded, from different sources and different typologies [33]. Conceptually what was being pursued was not different from what had already been tried, in the late decades of the 20th century, authors such as Golvin, Mcaulay, Hernàndez, Ballonga... But now, similar projects were proposed from a computer tool with new advantages and possibilities. Digital iconography paved the way, understood as an opportunity to build comprehensible images of the past [34, 35]. Hypothetical 3D reconstructions of historical, archaeological, and heritage spaces, including urban enclosures, proliferated [36, 37]. It is worth mentioning the significant impulse that virtual archaeology brought to the creation of images from the past, which were increasingly realistic [38].
This new emerging subdiscipline of archaeology focused on the creation of digital images from archaeological information and its processes, as well as its interpretations and conclusions[39, 40]. Digital archaeological reconstructions advanced significantly, but little didactic theory was generated. Virtual archaeology had little impact on education. There was no significant reflection on the possibilities of digital iconography to interpret or explain the past, although the number of experiences grew [41, 42, 43, 44].
As new computer developments and mobile telephony burst into schools, exponentially multiplying the possibilities of access to past and past iconography, the consideration of images as an educational tool became a strategic option [45, 46, 47], However, history teachers did not take advantage of the new situation to massively incorporate iconography into the teaching and learning of history.
On the other hand, it should be noted that the advances in software enabled the emergence of techniques previously used by the film industry, such as matte painting; determinants in the generation of historical images [48]. These techniques also involved the presentation of large historic urban enclosures, limited in terms of graphical extension, by the perimeters of the spaces themselves, by the dimensions of the screens, and by the impressive memory that it implied to reproduce, in 3D, and with details, a large urban area. However, the advances were constant and, outstanding creatives like J.R, Casals, in collaboration with magazines like National Geographicor Desperta Ferro, managed to make spectacular replicas of urban enclosures of the antiquity.
Digital iconography reached a spectacular development from computer games and especially thanks to the engines that drove them [49]. Animated 3D recreations made in the film industry also demonstrated their extraordinary possibilities. The recreation of historical or para-historical landscapes in films and video games was constant and concentrated the know-how of digital illustration. The most ambitious projects achieved good results but in exchange for large investments and high degrees of professionalization [50]. Digital iconography produced with limited resources and applied in parallel to didactic and educational products, or outreach products, could not compete with the quality achieved in films and games, which, in turn, were widely socialized from the market. This involved a complementary problem (especially in the young population sectors) as high-quality digital products were available on the market at affordable prices, in contrast to the limited products offered by museums and educational environments. Proximity iconography could not compete with historical iconography exhibiting games like Assassins Creed[51].
In this context, the interests of the DIDPATRI research group focused on the use of affordable programs: Autocad, Maya, 3DSMax; SketchUp, Blender, ZBrush... to experiment and generate replicas or urban models and functional heritage elements, with an acceptable or good formal quality, and with a high didactic value from the conceptual point of view [52]. The proposals focused mainly on the organization of content, techniques, and criteria for the organization of images. In any case, it was considered important to manage the basic programs of the moment from which to build quality 3D complexes.
This was important as it was intended to assess whether any center (research institute, educational center, museum, interpretation center, town hall, etc.) interested in developing didactic iconography could aspire to build its 3D iconographic program without excessive costs. Naturally, the horizon opened up by new museum options such as virtual reality, augmented reality, or virtual museums, gave a great interest to the proposal [53, 54]. The usefulness of the digital proposals was finally confirmed by the emergence of the Covid19 pandemic in 2020, as it put on the agenda the need to advance the development of virtual museography.
