Virtual Museum as a New Reality: the Case of the “Paper Architectures” Rebuilt

Barbara Guastini

The main feature of this research is to investigate the potential of virtual reality on architectural visualization. Not only as a representative instrument, but also as a new canvas in which architectural design process can take place. To evaluate this chance has been adopted the museum typology: its  structure allows to host a wide variety of collections, like 3d digital arts model, 3d reconstructions and so on. Basically everything that was born inside the virtual dimension could find a showcase in this project. Thanks to the flexibility of this instrument, every collection can be modified, revised or increased during time. It could be seen as a “never ending” project. Because of that this museum could actually become an online platform, for sharing personal experiments or studying others.The research is based on designing the museum’s virtual structure and its content; the first collection prototype is based on –as they’re called- visionary architectures: born on “paper” and never built. This collection tries to rewrite the usual approach to the “paper architectures”, increasing their value and their suggestive nature thank to the virtual reality. The project rebuilt this artworks adding them the third dimension, that gives them the opportunity to be explored as real buildings. Inside the virtual dimension these artworks don’t have to deal with any technical issue and they can live as in their authors’ mind.