Archinect - News 2024-05-03T15:54:53-04:00 https://archinect.com/news/article/82526606/the-digital-future-of-architectural-history The Digital Future of Architectural History Places Journal 2013-09-23T15:34:00-04:00 >2013-09-23T15:34:18-04:00 <img src="https://archinect.gumlet.io/uploads/wt/wtvcqebufck1p5dq.jpg?fit=crop&auto=compress%2Cformat&enlarge=true&w=1200" border="0" /><em><p>In creating associated descriptive metadata, in tagging building entries to describe their materials, types, and, perhaps most especially, their styles, the author of metadata is practicing the historian&rsquo;s craft and engaging in the historian&rsquo;s stock in trade. "Name it, then we&rsquo;ll know what it is," Reyner Banham suggested at the end of &ldquo;The Great Gizmo.&rdquo; We can name it metadata creation, but we already know what it is: architectural history.</p></em><br /><br /><p> For several years Gabrielle Esperdy has been part of a team working on the development of SAH Archipedia &mdash; an online encyclopedia of American architecture sponsored by the Society of Architectural Historians. Here she explores the critical challenge of creating structural and descriptive metadata for the new resource &mdash; and argues that the digital platform has the potential "not only to publish scholarship but to produce it."</p>