Documenting lost heritage: the experience of the survey of architectures damaged by the earthquake in the Emilia area, Italy.

Two years ago, the earthquake that devastated a wide architectural heritage in the Emilia area, in Northern Italy, gave rise to a series of surveys and in-vestigations aimed at both documenting a lost or seriously compromised heritage and at recording information that can be used by different operators (i.e. fire de-partments, civil protection, engineers, architects, urban planners) and for different uses in different times, concerning the development of safety, recovery, restora-tion or demolition programs. The aim of this contribution is to show how digital technologies and in particular non-contact 3D survey methodologies can be used as an indispensable practice in order to rapidly and safely produce graphic docu-mentation about an architectural heritage that has been destroyed or severely damaged by a natural disaster. The presented case studies belong to a repertoire that ranges from single buildings to wider complexes that were selected for their historical and cultural importance and for the urgency of the development of intervention plans.