Accessibility Improvement Interventions at Byzantine Monuments

Abstract

The accessibility of monuments and archaeological sites by disabled persons and persons with restricted mobility in general, constitutes a social, financial and political demand. The project “PROSPELASIS” attempted to counter this problem by focusing on creating a methodology for facing monuments' accessibility and perceptibility problems for people with disabilities and testing its application at Byzantine monuments of Thessaloniki. In six major monuments included in UNESCO's World Heritage List, significant accessibility improvements were realized. Α Wi-Fi information system was installed in all of them via which an audio and visual information system was created with audio information in three languages, description of visual information, text information, information in Greek and International Sign Language. Additionally, in Rotunda and Heptapyrgion monuments three dimensional models were developed. The successful validation of the proposed methodology constitute the results of this project not only pertinent to Thessaloniki or Greece, but worthy of a wider application.