There are certain cities that evoke history. At every corner, it seems, there’s another landmark, historic building, or piece of art that sparks the imagination. Paris, with its churches, cobblestone streets, and museums, is decidedly one of those places, where you can’t help but wonder what it looked like in centuries past, reports Condé Naste Traveler.
Wonder no longer: A start-up tech company has figured out a way to show you how certain iconic locations might have looked hundreds of years ago, using virtual reality (VR). Earlier this week, Timescope unveiled the newest in a growing line of “self-service virtual reality services” that transport viewers to a different time or place. In this case, you can peer into the machine, located near the Pont d’Arcole bridge which connects Paris's Île de la Cité with the historic Marais district, and get a 360-view of the banks of the River Seine in 1628. The Timescope unit on the newly pedestrianized walkway shows a very different city.
By looking into the machine, which is free to use, you’ll see the cargo barges and fishing trawlers that once crowded the busy river. Point the telescope in a different direction, and see 17th-century architecture and streets built for carriages instead of Citroëns. In developing the animated 360-degree video, which is accompanied by the ambient street sounds of merchants and river birds, the Timescope team consulted with historians to make it as accurate as possible. An augmented reality (AR) element is added to the overall experience, as overlaid text points out important landmarks, like the Hôtel de Ville (Town Hall), which was completed during the reign of Louis XIII in - you guessed it -1628.
Parisian co-founders (and childhood friends) Adrien Sadaka and Basile Segalen first came up with the idea for Timescope on a trip to Pompeii, Sadaka tells Condé Nast Traveler. They had gone to the Ancient Roman city, destroyed by a volcanic eruption in 79 AD, for “a time travel experience,” but were disappointed to instead find modern development and crowds of tourists