The town Ribe in Denmark calls itself the oldest town in Scandinavia, asits history can be traced back to around year 700, when Vikings established a marketplace. Today, the town consists of a 10th century cathedral in the midst of many timbered houses.
The Museum of Southwest Jutland owns a complex of trade buildings, of which the oldest dates back to 1582, and works on mediating the city and its buildingsrs" past in a non-obstructive manner.
This happens through a project with two main objectives: Firstly, to examine how especially audio-visual media helps visitors understand the past, and how it links the museum space inside an old merchant's house with surrounding urban space. Secondly ndash;to acquire this knowledge ndash; we produced an iBeacon location-based mobile application merging exhibition rooms of a 1583 merchantrs"s house with the old townrs"s cultural heritage. Via this app, the old harbour comes back to life via Augmented Reality, the townrs"s role as ox trade assembly point and vibrant markets is experienced through immersive video, animations and interactive 3D models which also communicate building structures and room functions.