Based on selected parts of the collections at the Swedish National Museum of Science and Technology, the aim of the research project,
Digital Models, is to explore the potential of digital technologies to reframe Swedish industrialisation and its stories about society, people and environments. This book chapter presents the work done with one model, the Swedish 18th century inventor Christopher Polhem’s so called mechanical alphabet. His small wooden models were once built to pedogogically illustrate different mechanical principles. At a time when heritage institutions are exploring how new digital technologies can broaden access to their collections, the chapter recounts the ways in which our project has tried to metamodel Polhem’s alphabet in different digital formats, especially in 3D.

The chapter is published in the book, Der Modelle Tugend 2.0. Digitale 3D-Rekonstruktion als virtueller Raum der architekturhistorischen Forschung (eds) Piotr Kuroczyński, Mieke Pfarr-Harfst & Sander Münster (Heidelberg: arthistoricum.net, 2019)

http://books.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/arthistoricum/catalog/book/515