“A Worthy Place”: Durham, Duke, and the World of the 1920s-1930s

Duke's Historical Landscape: This table is a 3D representation of a 3250 ft x 4550 ft rectangular area around Duke's West Campus as it was surveyed in 1924 - before the landscape was drastically raised, lowered and flattened during campus construction. Digital mapping layers are projected onto the table that represent the 1924 historical landscape, the 1930s landscape after the most dramatic landscape grading was completed, the locations of historical photos shown in the monitor above, and timelapse animations of changes to the topography over time. The monitor is synced to the table animation, and provides context about the primary sources used to build the table and new visualizations that help viewers understand how the landscape has changed over the past 100 years.