In computing, 'unarchiving' refers to the process of restoring compressed data. Building on this notion, this two-day symposium and one-day workshop investigates 'unarchiving' as an operative concept, considering both the methodological and theoretical approaches to restitution in architecture. While digital technologies have transformed debates on restitution in the fields of museum studies, cultural heritage and archival theory, their implications have not yet been fully integrated into architectural discourse. In this context, digital restitution is understood as the circulation of documentation rather than the return of material objects, achieved by digitally reconnecting dispersed architectural records with the communities, sites, and narratives from which they originated. The broader project brings together scholars, archivists, architects, and community organisations to test methods for digitally reassembling, contextualising, and critically engaging with architectural materials scattered across numerous archives. This diverges from the conventional notion of restitution, which focuses on architectural objects such as doors, columns or manuscripts held in ethnographic and museum collections- objects that can theoretically be physically returned.
This distinction is vital because architectural evidence is distributed across many institutions and professional domains and is seldom condensed into single artefacts that can be repatriated. Documentation of the built environment circulates widely: municipal planning records, engineering files, corporate archives, colonial administrative papers, private collections, and technical drawings collectively exceed the boundaries of architectural practice itself. Unarchiving Architecture therefore positions digital restitution as a concern within architectural history, theory, and practice by rethinking how dispersed architectural materials can be placed in relation to one another. In concrete terms, unarchiving involves digitally relating fragmentary records, annotating or amending metadata, and reconstructing contexts in ways that make materials accessible and open up new interpretations.
The need for such an approach grows more urgent in light of persistent inequalities in access and mobility, which prevent many of the communities most affected by histories of dispossession and erasure from consulting the very documents that concern their built environments. These communities, particularly in formerly colonised regions, find traces of their architectural histories housed in remote institutions, limiting their capacity for research and local heritage work. Moreover, these archives, concentrated primarily in the Global North, contain only partial and fragmentary traces: annotations, images, bureaucratic paperwork, datasets, drawings, testimonies, and other residual materials. For this reason, unarchiving cannot be limited to digitally relating records alone. It must also encompass scholarly, forensic, and community-led practices that complicate singular archival narratives. Digital restitution in architecture therefore requires more than just a geographic return or a metaphorical “decompression”; it necessitates collaborative engagement with incomplete and politically charged sources and methods, which is precisely what this symposium seeks to explore by defining what restitution can mean in architecture today.
The Unarchiving Architecture platform is a research prototype designed to explore unarchiving as a form of digital restitution in architecture. Rather than operating as an exhaustive digital archive, the platform is intended as a tool for engaging with scattered archival evidence pertaining to architecture and the built environment. It supports the writing of architectural history and the study of historic building heritage by making these materials more visible and accessible.
Currently, the platform consists of a single core environment titled 'Unarchiving', which is structured around a collection-based interface. The platform focuses on a limited set of materials to test how digital restitution might operate in practice. The emphasis is on process rather than completeness and engagement rather than accumulation.
The platform addresses the issue that architectural evidence, particularly that relating to colonial contexts, is often scattered across various institutions, inadequately catalogued and physically distant from the places and communities it concerns. Although these materials are often held in archives in the Global North, they are difficult to locate and relate within current architectural historiographies. The platform therefore operates alongside existing archives as a digital space for rethinking how architectural documentation is encountered and connected, not as a substitute for them.Drawing on critical reflections on the archive as a spatial and institutional apparatus — as articulated by Achille Mbembe, for example — the platform recognises that archival visibility is never impartial. Rather than seeking to overcome these limitations through technical means alone, Unarchiving Architecture treats digital visibility as a practice shaped by historical circumstances, institutional frameworks and ongoing disputes over access and interpretation.
The Collection page is at the heart of the Unarchiving Architecture platform. Designed as an evolving, map-based interface, it visualises the dispersion of architectural and built environment records, particularly those connected to colonial contexts. This cartographic layer spans Europe including Switzerland, revealing how architectural source materials have been distributed across institutional holdings far removed from the sites and communities they depict.This tool brings together digitised materials developed through partnerships with Swiss archives, where the project is based. These collaborations are based on joint investigation. They aim to facilitate careful, iterative engagement with collections that are often only partially inventoried or overlooked within broader archival systems.Another part of the collection is devoted to international collaboration and, at this stage, opens with materials from the Archives nationales d’outre-mer (ANOM), offering an initial exploration of one of Europe’s largest colonial archives.Specifically, the Collection page offers:
A searchable map showing where records are held and identifying the institutional locations and the regions and sites they concern, thereby highlighting the fragmented geographies of architectural archival accumulation.
Digitised materials from partner archives accompanied by metadata and annotations identifying their potential architectural relevance and situating them within a broader context.
Thematic filters allow users to explore materials by type, region or subject matter, encouraging relational reading and supporting the reconstruction of architectural histories.
By bringing together disparate and occasionally misclassified materials within a single interface, the Collection page illustrates that architectural evidence frequently exists in unexpected places and formats. It encourages researchers, practitioners and communities to engage with these traces as provisional entry points for further research, rather than as definitive historical records.