The National Building Museum is kicking off its summer programming with an immersive Notre-Dame experience. Debuting on the three-year anniversary of the devastating 2019 Notre-Dame fire, Notre-Dame de Paris: the Augmented Exhibition takes visitors through the history and ongoing restoration of the famed cathedral.
The installation is on view from April 15 through September 26. Admission is included with tickets to the museum which are $10 for adults; $7 for ages 3 – 17, students, and seniors; and free for museum members.
Histovery, a French start-up, is the creator of the HistoPad hand-held tablet that visitors will be given upon entrance into the exhibit. Visitors will use the tablet to navigate through various “augmentations” and interact with the exhibit. The augmentations show, for example, how parts of the cathedral were built and animations of the ongoing construction. The tablets also display facts about Notre-Dame’s history, architecture, and construction, as well as interactive models and even a game.
Friday’s opening of Notre-Dame de Paris: the Augmented Exhibition marks the installation’s North American debut. Histovery’s Raphael Marchou says the startup hopes to bring more exhibitions like this to the United States, possibly with other French landmarks like Versailles. Additionally, Marchou says that the group would like to develop a DC monument-focused HistoPad exhibition about a landmark such as the Capitol.
More information about the exhibit can be found here.
