Shells and missiles have rained down on Ukrainian cities since the war began, killing lives but also damaging historic buildings. Cultural services seek to preserve their memory using modern technology and 3D scanning.
French engineer Emmanuel Durand, an expert in 3D data acquisition, crosses the intersecting beams, and walks over countless rubble to plant his laser scanner, a type of tripod with a pivoting head, in a corner strategic location of a fire station severely damaged by the Russian Strikes.
Built in 1887, the red brick building along with its watchtower is a symbol of Kharkiv’s industrial revolution at the end of the 19th century.
Using his camera, Emmanuel Durand Checked in the building from every angle.
In the evening, Mr. collects. Durand all the data on one computer, such as puzzle pieces, to almost rebuild the building. The finished result is a perfect multiplication by 5 millimeters, which can be rotated in all directions, or cut into slices. You can also see the craters of explosions that shook the structure.
This allows the physical location of the building to be fixed in history. It can be used to see what is switched for security. To help see what may or may not be restored, but also for museographical aspects or historic, he continued. We have the real scene of the damage caused by the missile and an exact copy of what the building was like..
An entire team acted
A volunteer, Mr. Durand travels with his digitizer accompanied by architects, engineering specialists, specialists in historic buildings and a museum director, traveling to kyiv, Lviv, Cherniguiv, and Kharkiv.
In Kharkiv alone, about 500 buildings are listed as historical interests, most of them in the city center under Russian fire, according to architect Kateryna Kouplytska, a member of the commission responsible for identifying the historic place.
About 100 of them have been hit in Kharkiv while more than 350 historic buildings have been damaged or destroyed in the country since the war began, according to the Ministry of Culture.
If the Russian noose around the country’s second city is loosened, the shells are still falling regularly.
New explosions and the explosions caused by them, bad weather, jobs, visits … These weak buildings can break down faster. And you need to record the details accurately to stabilize them and keep their memory accurate, he explains.
The registration of damages will also be used for criminal proceedings. Across the country, we are seeing serious damage to our heritage. It is a genocide of the Ukrainian people and a genocide of Ukrainian culturehe said, determined war crimes.
After two days in the barracks, Emmanuel Durand’s team moved to the Faculty of Economics at Karazine National University in Kharkiv, located right next to the impressive headquarters of the Ukrainian security services (SBU), a target of the Ukrainian security forces. Moscow hit by many projectiles.
The faculty, a former building from the Tsarist era was Soviet, was one of the first reinforced concrete buildings in the country. It was signed by architect Serguiï Tymoshenko, style figure modern ukrainian at the beginning of the 20th century.
Protecting cultural heritage
Isn’t this recording pointless as the war goes on and people die every day? Culture is the basis of everything. If the culture spread as it should, it is likely that people would not die and there would be no war.replied Tetyana Pylypchouk, member of the commission but also director of the Kharkiv literary museum.
He sent most of his collections to western Ukraine to prevent them from being damaged by the war but also to prevent Russia’s destruction in case Kharkiv fell.
Now people are more and more realizing that cultural heritage is important when we don’t pay attention to it. before the war, he said.
Source: Radio-Canada
