Research Project TRANSRAZ Makes Destroyed Cultural Heritage Experienceable Again

Until its almost complete destruction in World War II, the city of Nuremberg was one of the great European metropolises. Its historic cityscape was considered a total work of art. In three years of interdisciplinary collaboration, a scientific network led by FIZ Karlsruhe had developed the innovative virtual research environment TOPORAZ, which revives, documents, and visualizes what was destroyed. With the follow-up project TRANSRAZ, which has now been completed, FIZ Karlsruhe and the University of Greifswald have expanded the content of this virtual research environment and made it sustainably useful for society. Thus, a tour of the central Hauptmarkt (main market place) was created as a virtual reality app for the museums of the city of Nuremberg, which makes it possible to experience the destroyed city and aspects of its history immersively. Links to the house book of the Nuremberg City Archives provide intuitive access for the interested public. Citizens can now participate as "citizen scientists" with their own contributions to the further expansion of the research environment, e.g. with old photos from family possessions.
Hotspots can be used to enrich selected locations in the 3D model with information. Sequences of such hotspots can be used to tell entire stories, e.g. about Goethe's visits to the city. For this purpose, the TRANSRAZ project has extended the area under investigation from the Hauptmarkt to the entire old town of Nuremberg within the last, still largely preserved city walls with approx. 3,700 buildings. In the meantime, more than 5,000 historical photos of the buildings are available, as is information on owners and residents, which the interdisciplinary team extracted from old address books using artificial intelligence methods and modeled into a knowledge graph, which can now be used to research relationships between people, their places of residence and work, and their professions.

The unique old town of Nuremberg, which cannot be restored in real terms, is revived as a virtual place of remembrance in the virtual research environment and the associated projects. At the same time, the systematic, scientific reappraisal and documentation of the condition before the destruction takes place. It did not exist until now.

More information about the TRANSRAZ project can be found on our website. The virtual research environment is publicly accessible at www.toporaz.de.