“ARchivi – The Milan You Didn’t Know in Augmented Reality” is a project funded by the Regional Program under the European Regional Development Fund 2021/2027 – Axis 1 “A more competitive and smarter Europe” – Action 1.3.3 “Support for SME investments in the development of new technologies” – INNOVACULTURA: Development of innovative projects in the cultural field.

Born from the collaboration between the City of Milan – Department of Culture and ARtGlass, the project aims to enhance and promote the city’s library heritage through the digitization of archives, encouraging increased public engagement and strengthening libraries’ role as places of gathering and exchange – essentially bringing Libraries “outside” the Libraries. The pilot project focuses on Sormani Library and the Library of the Museum of Natural History.

Through an integrated Augmented Reality (AR) system, library sources are connected to the urban environment via immersive visitor experiences offered in various formats:

1. A City Tour in Augmented Reality via Web App, accessible through streaming on one’s smartphone, invites users to explore the Porta Venezia neighborhood, once home to the now-vanished Lazzaretto. Thanks to the testimonies preserved in Sormani Library, forgotten buildings and untold stories come back to life.
   From the Web App, users can also access the podcast “Milan and Stendhal: A Double Portrait”, curated by eArs, which leads listeners through Milan from the perspective of French writer Stendhal and other renowned figures such as Alessandro Manzoni.

   To activate the City Tour and the podcast, simply scan the QR codes displayed on special postcards available at Sormani Library and the Library of the Museum of Natural History.

2. An Augmented Reality experience using smart glasses at the Museum of Natural History, where AR technology brings to life previously unseen archival documents from the library.
   Visitors are virtually guided by Cristiano Dal Sasso, curator of the Museum’s paleontological collections, to discover the story of the Megatherium skeleton, the largest prehistoric mammal. Once exhibited in the Museum’s halls, it was sadly destroyed during World War II bombings.

The project aims to create a new platform for shared storytelling and a best practice for the promotion, growth, and innovation of libraries as part of the new Extended Reality (XR) landscape, which increasingly involves all forms of cultural production and consumption, especially books and reading.

The city itself becomes a book, a game, and a narrative. Users have the chance to discover a Milan they didn’t know, through the voices of guiding characters and the materials stored in archives and libraries, now revealed through technology to reach the widest possible audience.

Within Milan’s library system, this project represents a groundbreaking initiative – a cutting-edge experience for library audience development. The innovative aspect, tied not only to technology but especially to its application, lies in the decision to democratize and simplify access to library archives and, by extension, to the city as a widespread museum and storyteller of otherwise unintelligible histories – all through the use of Augmented Reality. 

Realizzato con il contributo del PR FESR 2021-2027 di Regione Lombardia, Bando Innovacultura