The Omega Project: Developing Architectural Narratives for the Age of Mass Digitalisation

In recent decades the digitalisation of analogue documents has facilitated remote access to collections while helping preserve archival files. However, as James M. O’Toole pointed out, while ‘preserving the documents [is] certainly worthwhile’ it is not ‘as important as preserving the information’.1 To critically transform unique archival records into information understandable to a wider audience (including not only research insiders) in the first place and, secondarily, use the information in order to develop historically accurate architectural narratives are two of the most significant goals of the Omega Project: a multidisciplinary and collaborative endeavour, jointly pursued by the Department of the Arts of the University of Bologna and the Centro Studi e Archivio della Comunicazione (CSAC) of the University of Parma.