Web Museum Conserves History Of Italian Areas Struck By Earthquakes

The Museo Diffuso (Widespread Museum) Archive aims to preserve the history of areas in Italy hit by earthquakes and other disasters. The project is the brainchild of two architects, Marzia Filatrella and Marco Ferrara, who are working in collaboration with Modena’s Ordine degli Architetti (Order of Architects). They had the idea after the earthquake that hit the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy in 2012. The curators have been working to gather documentation to help preserve the memory of the buildings destroyed and damaged by the earthquake. The project covers structures in urban and rural areas, concentrating on their architectural style, usage and historical importance. Since then, the Museo Diffuso initiative has grown to have a national focus. It has become a way of archiving buildings and areas destroyed in natural disasters and virtually reconstructing them on the internet to preserve the memory of the landscape. Documentation includes videos, photographs, 3D models, drawings and topographical surveys published under a Creative Commons license. The project uses crowdsourcing techniques, whereby it solicits useful information from people. So far, the main contributors are architects, engineers, university departments, students, and government departments responsible for the environment and historic buildings. The Museo Diffuso is an open and free project available using Wikipedia’s multimedia archive, Wikimedia Commons.