Preparations for the Virtual Journey exhibition took three years. The organisers explain:
Our mission is to display the lost gems of Warsaw’s architecture, models of which we can see in our Park. As our miniatures focus primarily on the Saxon Axis and its surroundings, this virtual journey takes us to the region of Piłsudski Square of the 1930s.
The exhibition can be viewed with special virtual reality goggles. Marcin Szymański, representative of the firm Time Tec, one of the initiators and producers of the exhibition says:
It will be possible to ride in a carriage around the square, to get to know the history of the place and its buildings and also to view archival photos alongside contemporary photos of the same places.
In the beginning, we collected archival photos and materials. Once we’d collected an adequate amount of photographs necessary for the digital reconstruction of the square, we began developing facades of the buildings and layouts of the streets. Item by item, we reconstructed the entire square. There remained the animation of people and cars, breathing life into the buildings and recreating the climate of pre-war Warsaw.
Thanks to the newest technology and special headsets, visitors will not only ‘travel in time,’ but will also decide what they wish to see. It will depend on the visitors in which direction they look and where they wish to go. Upon putting on the goggles, a visitor will end up in the very centre of old Piłsudski Square and will be able to marvel at a full-scale, computer-generated 3D colour image of this portion of the city that was lost in World War II. Rafal Kunach, creator of the Mazovian Voivodship Miniature Park, said:
This technology is cutting-edge. When we used to watch 3D films, the cameraman would decide what we got to see. Now we are the cameramen. We can turn around, look up at the sky, look at the buildings. The impression is electrifying. We are working on the next miniatures. We hope to have fifty of them altogether.
The organisers also prepared some thirty charts and diagrams, showing the square. A free app will also be available, which allows one to look at old Warsaw. Worth a journey through time.
Warsaw’s Mazovian Voivodship Miniature Park is located at 38 Senatorska Street.
Source: PAP, compiled by MP, translated by YJR