| As one of
the most well-known buildings in the
American Southwest, the mission church is
well documented by photographs and other
material which are widespread amongst
archives and repositories throughout the
country. |
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To develop and supplement
the conservation
history and inform future conservation work and
research, existing
documentation, drawings, site plans,
photographs, written accounts, and
other relevant records are being identified,
digitized (when possible)
and organized into a centralized project
database.
Critical
collections include: the Bernard Fontana Papers
and the Patronato
Collection at the University
of Arizona’s Special Collections Library,
which chronicle the early restoration efforts
led by the Patronato San
Xavier from the 1970s to the 2000s; Photographer
Helga
Teiwes’s
collection of negatives documenting the
restoration of the interior in
the mid-1990’s at the Arizona State Museum
Library; and hundreds of
color slides, hand drawings, and field notes
held at Vint &
Associates, office of architect Bob
Vint, who has been overseeing work
at the Mission for the past three decades. |
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A significant portion of
this project involves devising a system for
data organization that allows easy access to
conservation-related resources for site
managers. This will incorporate bibliographic
resources including secondary sources, past
documentation, reports and specs, as well as
visual material like architectural drawings
and contemporary and historic photographs.
Historic
photographs are crucial to understanding the
physical evolution of San Xavier del Bac. A
wealth of historic photographs of the mission
exist and are spread amongst repositories
across the country. By using Adobe Bridge, an
open-source file management software from
Adobe, photographs can be organized by adding
metadata, or, information which becomes
embedded within the file.
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| BELOW:
Material
from Vint & Associates includes
several hand drawings. This
annotated roof plan and section of the
sacristy vault illustrates the
process of moisture infiltration. (Vint,
1993) |
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| This
photo album, prepared by Byron
Ivancovich, illustrates in detail
repairs made throughout the 1950s
restoration campaign. |
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| By entering key information
within specified
fields, hundreds of images become searchable by
a variety of categories
including: photographer, repository, era,
building feature, restoration
campaign, and other keywords. Similarly,
metadata guides can be
established for ongoing documentation
photography, providing a useful
organizational framework for recalling
documentation of more recent
projects. |
A
form for inputting information about
conservation-related events was
created using the database software Microsoft
Access based on an
initial review of archival resources. The survey
form regulates the
input of information and helps organize the
content of archival
resources in a way that makes it accessible and
searchable. By
including key information for each entry
pertaining to location,
materials impacted, and specific conservation
activities, a
chronological series of conservation-related
events can be retrieved
for various locations at the site, by material,
by activity, or by
source.
These organized materials will complement the
final
CMP and can continue to be built upon by future
site managers or
researchers.
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