From maps to the structures on maps. North Carolina State University and Preservation North Carolina have teamed up to create an online database of over 2700 drawings and over 5100 photographs showing hundreds of buildings in North Carolina. The Built Heritage of North Carolina is available at http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/specialcollections/builtheritage/. And as extensive as this resource is -- some of the buildings in the collection date back to the 1700s -- it's nowhere near finished.

From the front page you can browse by building name, creator, geographic location, or subject. I love the searchable subjects -- you can even do a search for doorknobs, for crying out loud. And who knew about the aqueduct? (Another fun one: "Art Deco".)

Reviewing the photographs and drawings is a little kludgy. Do a search or browse a subject and you'll get a popout window (make sure popups are enabled for this site) that shows you your search results. To get information about a drawing or photo, click the "data" link on the left navigation, then click on an image. You'll get date and architectural information for the image. To get a larger version of the image itself, double click it. You'll get a popup window with a larger image that you can pan around and zoom in on.

Aside from the slight awkwardness in navigating around the images, this site's a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to what's promised for later in 2009, including 3-D models of 16 historic structures, a timeline of architectural styles, and a map for locating buildings.