Historical Journals as Digital Sources:

Abstract

Historical Journals as Digital Sources: Mapping Architecture in Germany, 1914–24 demonstrates how historical journals can provide information for digital mapping and how mapping can tell us something new about the German construction industry in a moment of crisis. Digital maps can expand the art historical research process and raise fundamental art historical research questions. Paul B. Jaskot and Ivo van der Graaff developed a database from all issues of the German journal Deutsche Bauzeitung published in the period 1914–24 and visualized the evidence they collected using geographic information systems (GIS) technology. They assess how well the database works for historical analysis and GIS and discuss the indexical possibilities of the digital mapping of historical sources. The visualization of the database gives form to human actions and structural patterns that can redirect the art historical question from individual objects to what construction can tell us about society as a whole. In the process, such visualization allows us to see a much broader history of German architecture, 1914–24.