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Tourists and Portlanders alike now can tour the city’s architectural history through their cellphones.

The Bosco-Milligan Foundation has teamed up with Tagwhat, a Colorado-based software development company, to create an application that provides information 鈥� through an interactive mapping system 鈥� on the history and location of more than 80 of the city’s historic buildings.

鈥淲e are a repository for architecture and preservation information, and we wanted a way to get some of that information out to new and younger audiences,鈥� said Val Ballestrem, education manager for the foundation. 鈥淲hether you’re a resident or a visitor, you can stand on a street corner, turn on the application and have your own little adventure around town.鈥�

Ballestrem said the foundation drew inspiration for the project from a survey it set up in 2009; it asked people which buildings in the city were their favorites and why. Using the information gathered, the foundation was able to decide what to insert into the application’s database.

After four months of work to figure out how to best integrate the information with the Tagwhat system, Ballestrem added the program to Android and Apple application stores, where users can now download it for free.

鈥淢y primary goal was to get us a presence in the world of smartphone tour applications without spending thousands of dollars on app development,鈥� Ballestrem said. 鈥淲e have the ability to provide content, and Tagwhat presented an affordable, fun and easy way to get that content out there for thousands of people to enjoy.鈥�

Tagwhat works like a content-based GPS navigation system, using satellite-generated maps to showcase information about a user’s surroundings. Organizations create channels in the Tagwhat network, so that content can be added.

For the Bosco-Milligan Foundation’s channel, a map of Portland is given with icons representing the nearest architectural landmarks. When a user clicks on one of the icons, images and information are given. Users can learn when a building was constructed, who was behind its design and what it served as originally.

Use of the application in certain areas of the city can reveal treasure troves of information regarding how the area’s buildings have changed over the past century, as well as what design techniques were popular at the time. In the Hawthorne District, for example, one would find that the area formerly included a number of lavishly built homes and theater venues, including the Bagdad Theater, which was built in 1927.

鈥淚t basically tells you the hidden story of a structure,鈥� said Dave Elchoness, co-founder and CEO of Tagwhat. 鈥淚t might talk about the history of the location, but it’s not just limited to who designed it. It could be a site where a famous chief once worked, or where a movie scene was filmed.鈥�

The Bosco-Milligan Foundation heard about Tagwhat through the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which has encouraged its members to experiment with new ways to develop interactive tour applications. Elchoness said that a number of historic preservation organizations around the country have contacted Tagwhat to create applications, but none is as sophisticated as Bosco-Milligan’s.

There is still more work to be done, though. Eventually, Ballestrem wants to have more than 150 interactive landmarks in the system. And Ballestrem said the potential of what can be done through Tagwhat (mainly video and audio) is not close to being reached. But even without video content, the application serves as a new way to discover the old.

鈥淚nstead of using the tried-and-true old methods, we wanted to go through new technologies that would allow us to broaden our reach,鈥� Ballestrem said.