Digital Architecture

Stanford Digital Architecture

Stanford Digital Architecture provides a platform for research projects on the digital conservation, documentation, and reconstruction of historical monuments. It aims to gather documentation such as photographs, scholarly research, and oral histories about lost monuments, and to publish these in an open access format. 

The first project, in progress since 2020, is Reimagining Royal Space: The Qilij Arslan II Kiosk in Konya as a Case Study for the Digital Reconstruction of Islamic Architecture. This project examines the remains the royal kiosk, built for Seljuk sultan Qilij Arslan II (r. 1155-92) atop one of the northern towers of the wall around the citadel in Konya, Turkey. The structure was one the few medieval Islamic palatial structures to survive into the age of photography. Photographs taken before the upper structure collapsed in 1907 are the most valuable, as they show details that have been lost. This project aims to digitally reconstruct the original appearance of the kiosk. The research is based on the close study of the earliest recorded drawings and photographs of the building, alongside the extant material remains in museums across the world, as well as the in-situ structural elements. Collection and study of all that material, including on-site research and visits to the relevant museum collections, was completed between 2020 and 2023. Preliminary drawings of the proposed reconstructions were created based on this research. In project so far has received funding from the British Academy, the British Institute at Ankara, Princeton University, and Stanford University. 

A new project, Historical Architecture in Disaster Zones: Digital Documentation, Archiving, and Preservation, funded by a Humanities Seed Grant from Stanford Public Humanities, is scheduled to begin in summer 2025. For more information, see the "Research" tab on this site. 

Department of Art and Art History
McMurtry Building 
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305

email: pblessin@stanford.edu
phone: (650) 736-8458

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