Modeling the City History

This paper explores the idea that 3D city models integrated with hypermedia systems can facilitate the sense of belonging to a place. 3D models are powerful tools for buildings and urban space analysis as artifacts, which synthesize menis reality and aspirations. As such, combined with hypermedia resources, they can strengthen the spectatoris actual experience in the analyzed space. The focus of the investigation is 3D models constructed to represent and analyze city evolution. The experience of developing the models of Latin American cities - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Havana, Cuba - developed at PROURB (Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) is explained with an overview of its methodology