3D DETAILED RECONSTRUCTION OF A DEMOLISHED BUILDING BY USING OLD PHOTOGRAPHS 
C. loannidis, C. Potsiou, J. Badekas 
Laboratory of Photogrammetry, N.T.U. of Athens, Greece 
Commission V, Working Group 4 
KEY WORDS: Architecture, Cultural_Heritage, Rectification, Reconstruction, Restitution, CAD, Close_Range, 
Non_metric 
ABSTRACT 
In many cases, when the restoration or the rebuilding of impotrant old buildings, that are partially or totally destroyed, is 
needed, or when the documentation of destroyed monuments is attempted, old amateur pictures usally consist the most 
significant source of information. The lack of control points or other metric information makes the use of such pictures 
very difficult or even impossible for the compilation of detailed, high-accuracy plans. The structure of the building/object 
and the availability or not of some additional information play a critical role for a successful result. 
In this paper, an application on an already demolished 3 
-floor building of interesting architecture is presented. The 
combination of old airphotos, old terrestrial amateur pictures and some old plans of parts of the building, gave a 3D digital 
detailed restitution of the building by applying analytical and digital photogrammetric methods and using a CAD package. 
The whole proceedure and methodology followed are given and the graphic results together with the degree of accuracy 
achieved are shown. 
1. INTRODUCTION 
The compilation of a proper, detailed and reliable survey is 
of great importance for the study, conservation, protection 
or restoration of any type of monument. In the case that 
the particular monument does not exist any more, the 
compilation of the plans based on measurements and 
interpretation of old imagery seams to be the only solution. 
Yet, in most of these cases the images have been taken 
by amateur cameras for various purposes and above all 
no control points or other geodetic measurements are 
available. 
A similar situation is of a building that in the past was used 
as the Town Hall of Pireas, the greatest harbour of 
Greece, very close to Athens. This building was founded in 
1869, by the seaside close to the central harbour, and its 
construction was finished by 1874. It was a big 3-floor 
building of significant architecture. Its longest dimensions 
were 22.65 x 27.90 m, its ceilings were of varying hights 
and in the center there was a small tower-clock (see 
Figure 1). Since 1885, until its demolition in 1968, it used to 
be the Town Hall and the Municipality Services Building. 
Today, at the same area there is a park. 
In 1994 the new local authorities have planned a project to 
rebuild the old building at its original location following its 
initial shape, size and architecture. For the better study of 
the project, a digital 3D representation of the building was 
decided to be necessary. Also detailed facade plans of all 
sides and horizontal sections in desired levels were of 
crusial importance for the reconstruction. The only 
possible solution for the achievement of these plans is the 
“photogrammetric” use of some existing old amateur 
pictures / post-cards of the early time of the building, 
which were found in the municipality archives and in other 
private collections. 
2. COLLECTION OF AVAILABLE INFORMATION 
The first step of this work was the research of any existing 
available information/material that might contribute to the 
definition of the metric information concerning the building. 
The systematic and careful research of all possible 
16 
sources of information (that is the Historical Archive of the 
Municipality of  Pireas, private collections, special 
exibitions, antique shops, old airphotos of the area of 
interest, old urban planning maps etc) resulted to the 
followings: 
a. Several close-range amateur pictures, most of them 
post-cards, of the 4 sides of the building, taken from 
various points of view, on various scales and on dates 
varying from the beginning of the century until the date 
of the building's demolition. The most important of them 
were properly magnified and reproduced, so that 
reliable measurements were taken: 
- two of them were of the southern side 
- one of the northern side 
- one of the western side 
- one of the eastern side 
- one of the northeastern side and 
- one of the southeastern side 
b. vertical and oblique airphotographs of the area during 
the period of the 1950's and the 1960's. Only one pair 
of vertical airphotographs was proved useful for 
photogrammetric measuring. It was taken in 1965, at a 
scale of about 1:6.000 
c. paper photocopies of six old plans of the building, in 
moderate condition, which are: 
- topographic diagram of the area of the building at a 
scale of 1:100, compiled in 1957 
- facade plan of the eastern and western side of the 
building at a scale of 1:50, compiled in 1921 
- plan of the southern facade at a scale of 1:50, 
compiled in 1921 
- old planimetry of the basement at a scale of 1:50, 
which was done as a proposal for changing the use 
of the building from Town Hall to a Nautical Museam 
- planimetry of the internal area of the first floor at a 
scale of 1:50 
- planimetry of the internal half area of the second floor 
at a scale of 1:50. 
It must be mentioned that the two existing old plans of the 
facades have serious differences when compared with the 
related photographs, the most important of them are 
referred to 
e the construction which existed on the upper part of the 
western side and is not shown on the facade plans 
International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXI, Part B5. Vienna 1996 
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