
Free virtual tours of 2,500 museums around the world - bookofjoe
https://artsandculture.google.com/partner?hl=en
======
digitalsushi
As an 18 year old high school student, I was able to snag a free seat on a
field trip to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, just a little trip to
Boston from my hometown of Claremont, NH. In 1998, my high school had just
lost its accreditation, I had just flunked pre-calculus for the second year in
a row, and I had absolutely no direction in my life. Three months later I
would be kicked out of college for a 0.6 first-semester GPA, to begin the very
long, awkward journey of finding myself. This takes many more years before the
first success.

But that trip to this museum, one included on this website as a virtual tour,
planted a seed, deep down in my mind that would take years to spout. The
museum is a Venetian palace, and at the center, draped by shadows that lurch
outwards from receding hallways, lies a majestic courtyard, adorned with
crenulation and dentils that mesmerize and steal the time from day. A trashy
townie punk stood there aghast that beauty could render so closely, and knew
there for maybe the first time that a world beyond home awaited.

I never got a chance to thank the man that let me sneak aboard that bus, but
many times already I have felt the spirit of sharing to an outsider that
access, and evermore will I continue for it is only during these moments that
we can so easily take stock of what we've been.

Support the arts.

~~~
schoen
That museum is amazing!

Also amazingly, today (!!) is the thirtieth anniversary of the unsolved theft
of several masterpieces from its collection.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_Stewart_Gardner_Museu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_Stewart_Gardner_Museum_theft)

It seems less likely every year, but I'm still hoping that those works will
come home to the museum someday.

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jvm___
"Walking tour new York city" "Walking tour paris" "Walking tour ..."

Pick the longer videos on YouTube or filter for them. I throw one on mute and
just leave it on while I'm on my couch working. Nice to see people up and
about while you're alone.

Also, you notice people coughing/sneezing way more now even if the video is
years old.

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Causality1
Is it strange that I would enjoy these far more if they were embedded in a
walkable version of the museum running in a game engine? Like "virtually visit
a museum" is a lot more appealing than "look at pictures of things that are in
museums".

~~~
mongol
It is better than that. Use their app and then you can put van Gogh in your
living room (AR)

[https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/self-portrait-
with-g...](https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/self-portrait-with-grey-
felt-hat-vincent-van-gogh/PgEJ1hPIzqsM2w)

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jarrell_mark
Scan the World - 3D printable cultural artifacts:
[https://www.myminifactory.com/scantheworld/](https://www.myminifactory.com/scantheworld/)

Collection of public domain cultural heritage 3D models on Sketchfab:
[https://sketchfab.com/nebulousflynn/collections/cc0](https://sketchfab.com/nebulousflynn/collections/cc0)

~~~
otterCompile
There's a similiar site for german cultural sites/rooms (unfortunately only in
german): [https://vr-dynamix.com/bayern3d-heimat-digital/](https://vr-
dynamix.com/bayern3d-heimat-digital/)

Direct links to the vr-application: [https://www.vr-
dynamix.com/bayern3d/dk/index.html](https://www.vr-
dynamix.com/bayern3d/dk/index.html) [https://www.vr-
dynamix.com/bayern3d/wbgarten/index.html](https://www.vr-
dynamix.com/bayern3d/wbgarten/index.html)

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fluxinflex
FWIW, I created a tool that automagically walks through a Google street view
(originally done for road trips through cities). I've now added some of those
museums. I leave it running and occasionally look where it has led me to -->
[https://roadtraveller.herokuapp.com/](https://roadtraveller.herokuapp.com/)

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andy_wrote
Since last Friday I've been making my Zoom virtual background a daily rotation
of artwork. It's been a fun and educational experience for me (I'm no art
expert, just a casual fan of museums) and I think my friends and co-workers
have enjoyed it. When you're mostly stuck at home all day it's nice to have a
daily "new" to look forward to.

I've been recording my choices and when this is over I'll have a little "Zoom
Museum" as a kind of artistic memorial of the pandemic.

This link is a great source for new art, so thank you OP!

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ekianjo
Virtual tour? Since when is a virtual tour a collection of pictures in a
random order? Walking in a museum is also about the sense of space and how
everything is organized. Such abuse of words.

~~~
Liquid_Fire
Perhaps it doesn't work for every museum, but for the one I tried (Van Gogh
Museum) you can get a Street View-like view where you can actually move around
the museum and look around, by clicking the yellow human street view icon.

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jonathanstrange
I have sent a suggestion to Google to combine this with Google Hangout Meet,
so quarantined friends can see and talk to each other while watching the
images. I also suggested to split virtual visitors into random tourist groups,
so if you visit the virtual museum alone you can be joined by others if you
want to... and they should add virtual tours if they don't have them yet,
where a real museum guide joins the group and gives a tour.

I hope they read my suggestion and can implement these features.

~~~
blauditore
Google Meet seems to be the only one currently not cracking under the
increased load, while Zoom, Webex, and others are starting to fail. I guess
there's little room to add features right now...

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getpost
Google puts the museum hours at the bottom of the museum landing pages. These
hours are unlikely to be valid for the time being, with so many museums being
closed. How often are the hours scraped and reposted? Or were these entered
manually? It’s a nitpick, of course, but much of good design is attention to
details like this. I would have left this section out; it’s unlikely this info
would ever be maintained correctly.

------
fasicle
These are worth checking out as well:

[https://experiments.withgoogle.com/collection/arts-
culture](https://experiments.withgoogle.com/collection/arts-culture)

------
srhngpr
This is awesome, thanks for sharing. What are some other similar resources to
be able to explore the world virtually?

~~~
themodelplumber
[http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/m.html](http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/m.html)

How about the world of radio waves? Type in 198, AM. There's a good
documentary of Apollo 13 on the Beeb currently, 7:43 PM PT, 0243 UTC :-)

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merrvk
Not quite a tour, but some really well put together content in my opinion

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buboard
This is where VR is needed

~~~
sunnyam
There is a Google Arts and Culture VR app available. It's nice because it also
has commentaries on some of the pieces of artwork so it's almost like going on
a real tour in a gallery.

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longtermd
I tried some of them. All of them have a horribly low UX and UI. That means
they are 100% unusable. Please hire some Silicon Valley engineers and make
SPEED a feature. As it's now', it is pretty much totally worthless. I'm sorry
to say so. Take it as real feedback. I tried it once, horribly slow, I'll
never go back.

This is a good way to "burn through" a huge audience, which will remember you
as a "slow, hard, and unusable service", and never come back. It won't matter
then how hard you try to push or market.

~~~
phsource
I'm a bit confused: the featured link here seems to be made by Google, and
seems pretty performant in Firefox on a 6-year-old Macbook (albeit with a good
Internet connection). Were you thinking of other links that had been shared
before?

