The first collections of art and tradition in Romania – coming from seven museums and institutions such as the Romanian Peasant Museum and Brukenthal Museum – have been released on Tuesday on Google Cultural Institute online platform, being available for free observation for the worldwide Internet users.
Three of the most important museums in Romania – Romanian Peasant Museum in Bucharest, Brukenthal National Museum and National Museum Complex Astra in Sibiu -, but also associations and foundations which expose their works from their heritage – Folklore Without Borders Association, the Order of Architects in Romania, Pro Patrimonio Foundation, Wassertalbahn Foundation (dealing with the “Moc?ni?a” train at Vi?eul de Sus) – have launched their collections on the Google Cultural Institute platform.
Thus, images of over 800 exhibits from the collections of these institutions – paintings, drawings, folk art items, religious artifacts, photographs and documents – are available on the Google platform. Nevertheless, a selection of works of art has been immortalized in high resolution, allowing the highlighting of the smallest details.
Dan Bulucea, Country Manager of Google Romania, said the launch of this project in particular is making him happy. “We are very happy. Google Cultural Institute is nothing but a digital platform that allows global cultural and historical heritage to be available on the Internet,” said Dan Bulucea.
Google Cultural Institute digital platform has over 600 partner institutions in 60 countries, so that everyone can explore online paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, religious artifacts, manuscripts from the museums and collections all over the world. “It’s a major phenomenon. As of today, there are seven partners in Romania to provide some of our particular values anywhere in the world. (…) We start this project and we see it as a new start. (…) We can provide the technology so that people can interact with these values. This project might also contribute a lot to the preservation of these values,” added Bulucea.
He said that this project is also an invitation addressed to all museum institutions in Romania, mentioning that he expressed hope that other museums and institutions in Romania will join Google Cultural Institute in time. However, according to Dan Bulucea, the Google Cultural Institute platform acts as an invitation to its users to visit the heritage presented where it is currently being exposed.