BRICK BY BRICK REDRAWING. A Digital Approach to Dismantling and Reconstructing a Historical Building

Abstract This article reflects upon the methods I used to investigate the relationship between the structure and the facade construction of industrial architecture. In Berlin in particular, iron and brick have been a constructive characteristic of the first third of the 20th century. The tool of technical drawing proved particularly effective in the preliminary investigation. After choosing to investigate buildings that still exist today by means of a critical redrawing, fragments were gradually dismantled and the construction hypotheses took on the character of a redesign of the elements. With the help of recent drawing technologies it was possible to reconstruct a »technical style«, obtained by comparing different fragments represented in the same way. Threedimensional modeling allowed the physical reconstruction of portions of the buildings digitally, brick by brick.