The kunstkammer

Collecting historians have long investigated the location and contents, intentions and meanings, sources and afterlife of the kunstkammer. Research often remained focused on individual case studies, with an emphasis on Italian exemplars, while attempting to assess what is lost.

Today, however, digital tools allow for convincing reconstructions on the basis of data generated in the past. They enable specialists in collecting history and museology to bring study rooms, their decorative schemes and contents back to life, in a virtual reality and through adoption of 21-century technology. Among the obvious advantages of digital kunstkammern are reconstructions achieved without long-term loans or health and safety hazards caused by the original architectural frame as well as visual attractiveness beyond traditional plans and drawings.

Academic research based on digital reconstructions lends itself to direct and detailed comparison over a wider geographical as well as chronological frame. Location, decoration, contents and visitor impressions of northern and southern European kunstkammern can thus more easily be compared. In addition, biographies of rooms and collecting items displayed within individual buildings or courts as well as the transformation from one studiolo to the next can be investigated and visualised.