There are donkeys tied up on the side of cobbled walkways, women handing out vegetables in a street market and a dark moustached man involved in some sort of barter. The year is 1850 and I’m smack in the middle of Nicosia. Then enter George Chrysanthou, a computer scientist who designs virtual tours and is now responsible for giving people the rare chance to feel like they’ve stepped foot in some sort of time machine that actually does a rather brilliant job.
As I walk down the old streets I can even turn to look and see if I’ve missed anything behind me and peek round all sorts of nooks and crannies that show me how very different the capital used to be. I soon get to stop off for a little breather in the hamam and I’m also taken for tea in the house of the Great Dragoman of Cyprus, Kornesios Hadjigeorgakis. Now that’s what I call virtual reality!
“It took a good few years to get things going,” says George. “But the hardest part is what I’ve designed in the other room,” he explains as I’m led through another period in history. All part of an effort to really jazz up the Leventis Museum, the venue has reopened this month following a two-year renovation process.
Tucked away in the winding streets of Nicosia’s Laiki Yitonia, the general aim was to make the place more modern, interesting and interactive; the curators wanted the public to really get in touch with our island’s history. A far cry from what the museum looked like when it first opened its doors back in 1989, the ultra modern interior is now accentuated by findings showcased in beautifully lit glass cabinets.
The second room I’m shown boasting virtual technology is dominated by a touch table that gives the viewer insight into how Nicosia looked when the first settlers arrived on the island and then how the image of the town changed once the Venetian walls were built.
“It’s multi touch, 3D and interactive,” explains George with plenty more computer jargon thrown in that leaves me feeling a little lost in translation. But it’s hardly surprising that I’m slightly baffled by it all, apparently touch tables like this are hard to come by, found in just a few museums around the world, and certainly not elsewhere in Cyprus. As a teacher of computer graphics and virtual reality at the University of Cyprus, George was obviously the right man for the job when it came down to innovation.
“The process was a long and difficult one because we had to go through various prototypes to get to the final result,” the specialist points out. And what was the hardest part of the whole process? “Ah, it had to be getting the models to look right. I mean it’s one thing to have people tell you what a certain place or building should look like and it’s another thing trying to model it correctly.” In some cases original pictures would be old and tattered, hardly doing justice to a given building that needed to be replicated, on other occasions it was a case of having no picture at all and having to put together an image from old writings and manuscripts.
Not done single-handedly, George was joined on the venture by a team of five computer scientists who even went on a mission abroad to complete some of the work. That’s not to forget the local filmmaking crew that brought the whole virtual project to life with action shots taken in some of the locations shown on the screen. “I think the most important function of these virtual tours is an educational one. The museum will be planning plenty of visits from school children to give them a real impression of what Nicosia used to look like. It’s so much more effective than just showing them pictures or reading to them.”
George and his team then proceed to get carried away with a little more technical banter but my eyes are fixated on the tiny dwellings that used to make up the whole of Nicosia. Strange how a mere touch of a screen can now take you back to times you can barely believe ever existed.
The Leventis Municipal Museum
Hippocratous Street, Laiki Yitonia, Nicosia. Tel: 22 661475
