Informative models of cultural heritage: the "unfinished" church of Brendola

The paper is an initial form of dissemination of the research activities carried out by the Università Iuav di Venezia working group which, on behalf of the Municipal administration of Brendola, seeks to delineate the application of a methodology for the study and analysis of the architectural and landscape heritage of significant cultural interest that is in a state of abandonment. The case study application is the church of San Michele Arcangelo in Brendola (Vicenza), known as the “Incompiuta” (“Unfinished”). The case study proposed is an interesting exemplar of ecclesiastical architecture, designed by engineer-architect Fausto Franco, in which its characteristics of being unfinished and in a state of ruin contribute to redefining the image of a work that fits in a historical context of architectural and technical experimentation, where the reference to historical architecture is mediated by contemporary forms and by the use of modern building materials, among which, the use of reinforced bricks is noteworthy. The research activity, which is taking place in the context of the COVID-19 health emergency, aims at putting a series of strategies and operational practices based on the digitisation of data to the test to allow increased interoperability and sharing through the building of an online open data repository addressed to the actors involved in the conservation process and to the community. In the processes of conservation and valorisation, in-depth knowledge and documentation of the materials and construction techniques involve multidisciplinary areas; effectively organising them in a system that regulates their collection, cataloguing, processing and archiving according to shared procedures, therefore becomes a fundamental prerequisite for the development of operational planning of the valorisation strategies. All the instruments that make it possible to collect data and reach true knowledge of the object become indispensable. From this perspective, the push towards digitising the data that emerged during the pandemic phase plays a fundamental role in the range of application possibilities, from the survey to the mechanisms for the conservation and management of cultural heritage.