Enjoy Lisbon's Art & Culture from home

Why on Earth should you do that? Isn’t it better to see it for real?

Of course it is.

But for most people it’s impossible to visit all Lisbon offers on the art and culture when you also want to enjoy all the other things the city offers. Eventually you have to prioritize your time.

And how do you do that?

Of course you can get help and inspiration through guide books, travel blogs, features in newspapers and magazines etc. Still you will end up with too many things on you bucket list.

This is where Google’s Art & Culture project enters. It’s an amazing tool to get a layer deeper in the Portuguese art world than all other media. This project makes it possible for you “walk” around Lisbon’s best museums and experience their art collections as if you are there for real. Everything presented in a quality that leaves you thinking: I have to see this for real or OK this can wait to my next Lisbon visit. All thanks to Google’s Camera Technology .

We closed the collaboration agreement in November 2017, when we made the announcement, during the Web Summit.

We have been working with more than 20 institutions to launch the project and the truth is that working with all these institutions, with the type of content and the technologies we make available for the museums can be quite complex.

Like the Art Camera - one of the technologies we offer. It is not a normal camera a person without experience without & knowledge can operate...

Helena Martins, Google Cátia Rocha, Dinheiro Vivo - 19 January 2019

The project was kicked off at WebSummit 2017 – only a few months after Google closed a deal with 20 of Portugal’s most important art and culture institutions (most of them in Lisbon) about the digitalizing the museums collection using Google’s technology and Special Art Camera.

Today Google Art & Culture, Lisbon consists of more than 80 museums and institutions, more than 100 ‘stories’ (like guided tours) more than 2,000 works. An impressive way to discover AND rediscover this amazing city’s art scene.

It's the camera that makes the whole difference

Thanks to Google we found our house in Graca. When we saw house from above with Google Earth with the open space and 2 huge trees behind and it’s view towards Tejo and then saw the same house from on Google Street view we had to see it.

We do the same when we are searching for beaches – we look from above.

It’s the same technology Google use for Art & Culture. You can either enter a museum (like National Patheon) and walk around inside or you can navigate ‘around’ the art in ways that’s only possible because of the camera.

Take Hieronymus Bosch’s The temptation of St. Anthony. Triptych. I can stay in front of it for ages when I see it at MNAA (National Museum of Ancient Art). But I can spend hours on all it’s details on Google Art & Culture – and return immediately if I want to see it again.

Have a look at these “miserable” screen dumps above – aren’t they amazing?

Enjoy,

Thomas