Virtual voyage of discovery through St Stephen's Cathedral
85 tours and cultural films, 122 digital rooms. Discover-Culture offers immersive visits to numerous sights from the comfort of your own home. Prominent new addition: St Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna.
Step out into the rain gutter from the attic of St Stephen's Cathedral. Climb down into the catacombs, walk through the nave of the cathedral and explore the north tower with the famous Pummerin. St Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna was surveyed and scanned for months to make virtual experiences like this possible. A special 360-degree camera was used to capture every corner of the Viennese landmark. The 3D scans were rendered on the computer to create digital tours, which can now be accessed on the Discover Culture platform. To give visitors the same experience online as they would have on site, users can move around freely in the virtual space, change their viewing direction and view every detail. Discover-Culture also offers insights that usually remain hidden. The digital tour of St Stephen's Cathedral also offers a number of special features: Video sequences and audio tracks provide users with background information, such as from cathedral priest Toni Faber, who reveals what is hidden inside the golden spire.
Creating barrier-free access
In 2022, the developers of Discover-Culture, the Benedictine Admont Abbey in Upper Styria and the Schladming-based online marketing agency LightCyde, were honoured with the Austrian cultural sponsorship award Maecenas for "best practice - in economically and culturally challenging times". "It is important to us that cultural treasures are open to everyone, which is why we have removed the biggest barrier: accessibility," says Mario Brandmüller, economic director of the museum and the tourism and PR department at Admont Abbey,
Thanks to the cultural platform, sights such as Bückeburg Castle in Germany and the world's largest monastery library in Admont are now just a mouse click away from each other. "Creating barrier-free access to art and culture also means keeping the prices of the tours as low as possible," says Matthias Fischbacher from LightCyde. Tickets for the online tours range from 0.99 to 4.99 euros; many tours are available free of charge. The fact that St. Stephen's Cathedral can also be visited in virtual space with free admission is thanks to a sponsor: "Sonepar Austria is supporting our digitalisation campaign in the arts and culture sector. This makes it possible to explore Vienna's landmark for free on Discover-Culture," says Fischbacher.
Offer is constantly growing
The number of art and cultural institutions presenting their offerings digitally on Discover-Culture is growing steadily. In addition to St Stephen's Cathedral, the Austrian National Library is now also part of the immersive experience through 122 digital rooms. Nevertheless, "we are not in competition with a visit on site," emphasises Mario Brandmüller, because "our cultural platform reaches a completely new audience and should, above all, make people want to visit the originals." For cathedral priest Toni Faber, Discover Culture also offers a unique opportunity to "discover how rich and varied the treasures of the cathedral are", says the cathedral priest, who emphasises: "I believe that the church simply has to move with the times here too."
Providing a stage for regional museums too
In addition to prominent sights such as St Stephen's Cathedral, we also want to offer regional museums a stage, says Matthias Fischbacher. Thanks to a large-scale project by the Ennstal-Auseerland Leader Region, fourteen museums in Ennstal and Ausseerland were digitised last year and put online on Discover-Culture. Together with the offerings of other institutions, these regional cultural treasures merge into a complete digital package that can be accessed by people all over the world.
