Notre-Dame de Paris: augmented reality fuels a new immersive exhibition at the National Building Museum

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Image courtesy of National Building Museum

Ahead of the third anniversary of the devastating fire at Notre-Dame de Paris in April 2019, the National Building Museum in Washington, DC has announced a new 360-degree augmented reality exhibit focusing on the restoration of the famous cathedral and more than 850 years of history.

Developed by the French startup Historical and historical brand L’Oréal, the traveling exhibition Notre-Dame de Paris: the expanded exhibition offers visitors an immersive experience in the first constructions of the building in the last decades of the 12th century, the coronation of Napoleon I in 1804, and the day of the fire itself among other significant points on his extensive timeline using a special hand-held “HistoPad” as a guide.

Notre-Dame Cathedral on the day of the fire on April 15, 2019. Image: Wikimedia Commons user Marind.

Device users can choose their own experience enriched by vinyl flooring replicas, stained glass transfers, audio taken from inside the cathedral as well as a projection of the famous rose window which miraculously succeeded at survive the fire.

This is the museum’s first experiment with the type of exhibitions which aroused a good dose of curiosity (and even some parody) on their tours through Chicago, Hong Kong and other global cultural hotspots.

West rose window of Notre-Dame. Image: Gigascope.

“The National Building Museum is the perfect place for this exhibit to make its U.S. debut,” said Histovery co-founder and CEO Bruno de Sa Moreira. “The museum was created to preserve and celebrate the building arts and its mission is to inspire curiosity about the world we design and build.”

This is the first time the show has traveled to North America after debuting in Europe last year.

Notre Dame of Paris opens to the public on April 15 and will run until September 26.