From Digital Models to Knowledge Ecosystems: Correlating Space, Time and Interpretation in the Scientific action for the Restoration of Notre-Dame de Paris

Heritage research transforms the interaction between material objects and multidisciplinary inquiry into a powerful engine of collective knowledge production. Drawing on the scientific programme of Notre-Dame de Paris, this talk presents an innovative approach to computational modelling and digitisation that moves beyond the mere reproduction of physical form toward the structured exploration of knowledge itself. Mobilising specialists from archaeology, anthropology, architecture, history, chemistry, physics and computer science, the Notre-Dame scientific action has generated a large corpus of heterogeneous data reflecting contemporary scientific practices in heritage research. Our ambition is to correlate and structure this multidimensional information along four fundamental axes: space, form, time and knowledge domains. These axes are explored through geometrico-visual representation, semantic annotation, temporal tracking of transformations, and the analysis of thematic and disciplinary intersections.

Methodologically, this approach seeks to document and formalise the scientific gestures that underpin research processes, making explicit how data are produced, interpreted and interconnected. Technologically, it relies on the development of an innovative socio-technical ecosystem (including collaborative tools for acquisition, categorisation and annotation) and on the design of autonomous correlation engines capable of dynamically interrelating diverse datasets and perspectives. Through experimental software such as Quasi.modo and Dür.air, digital models become evolving research environments: not merely representations of heritage objects, but structured spaces in which material evidence and interpretative frameworks mutually inform and transform one another.

Livio De Luca is a Research Director at the CNRS and an architect by training, with a PhD in engineering and an Habilitation in computer science. He led the CNRS/Ministry of Culture MAP Laboratory (Models and Simulations for Architecture and Heritage) from 2012 to 2023 and has coordinated numerous national and European research projects. His work focuses on 3D survey and geometric modelling, semantic enrichment of digital representations, multidimensional information systems, and knowledge graphs for cultural heritage.

Since 2019, he has coordinated the “Digital Data” working group within the CNRS and Ministry of Culture scientific programme for the restoration of Notre-Dame de Paris. Since 2022, he has been the recipient of an ERC Advanced Grant. He serves as Editor of the Journal of Cultural Heritage (Elsevier) and Associate Editor of the Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage (ACM) and Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage (Elsevier). His work has received several distinctions, including the Pierre Bézier Award (2007), the Research and Technology Medal of the Académie d’Architecture (2016), the CNRS Innovation Medal (2019), and the UID (Italian Union for Design) “Targa d’Oro” (2021).