Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Please take a moment and visit the latest entry to the CyArk 3D Heritage Archive, a project created by CyArk Contributing Partner Christofori und Partner – the St. Sebald Church located in Nürnberg, Germany: http://archive.cyark.org/Saint-Sebald-Church-map

This medieval church, is one of the oldest and most important churches in Germany. It has gone through many changes over its near 800-year lifespan, and exhibits multiple styles in its architecture and sculpted facades, providing a palimpsest of the church’s architectural transformation from Romanesque into late Gothic, with 17th century Baroque interventions too. In World War II the church was nearly completely destroyed by Allied bombs. But reconstruction began after the war’s end, and in 2007, St. Sebald celebrated the 50th anniversary of its reconstruction.

To accurately record this stage in the life of the historic church, the engineering firm of Christofori und Partner was engaged to conduct a 3D laser scan and high-definition photographic survey. From this dataset a 3D digital reconstruction was created by the Bavarian State Department of Monuments and Sites to represent all the previous phases of the life of the church since its original construction in the 1230s. This revelatory model may be seen in a remarkable video that absolutely must be viewed. Digital models such as these will become more and more a core part of CyArk’s web archive: http://archive.cyark.org/media_popup.php?media_id=media_SSC_20080301_171527

As archived on CyArk, this project is also significant for its generation through Web 2.0. Christofori und Partner not only executed all data capture and data development, but they installed the complete digital project on the CyArk Internet archive remotely via the CyArk web application SiteManager, collaborating over the web with CyArk staff across the Atlantic and North America on editing the text. The St. Sebald Church is a significant first for CyArk and marks beginning of the operation of the heritage web archive as a dynamic collaborative network. 

John A. Loomis FAIA
Director of Communications and Development
CyArk High Definition Heritage Network
Kacyra Family Foundation
www.cyark.org