A Multi-scalar and Multi-modal Approach to Architectural Heritage Documentation: An Interactive Digital Representation of the St. Nicholas Chapel

The documentation, curation, and dissemination of endangered architectural heritage requires multidisciplinary expertise and imaginative engagements with heterogeneous formats and scales of analysis. Through a case study of a Carpathian-style chapel in Beaver, Pennsylvania, St. Nicholas Chapel, we explore how an architectural heritage building might be interactively documented in a way that situates it within long-standing architectural traditions while remaining attentive to its social and material specificity. We present a prototype of an interactive document showcasing a multi-modal and multi-scalar approach to architectural heritage that innovatively brings together data-intensive typological analyses, historical documentation, ethnographic interviews, geometric studies, and photogrammetry and LiDAR captures. The web-based document offers a highly detailed portrait of the St. Nicholas Chapel, inviting a broad audience of users to dynamically explore it through a combination of high-quality imaging and scanning methodologies, artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled geometric analyses, historical materials, and first-person accounts of its construction.