Historical AR reconstruction aligned with a street in Budapest's Jewish Quarter

HISTORICAL AR/XR · BUDAPEST

If These Streets Could Talk

A location-based historical AR experience that makes the forgotten stories of Budapest's Jewish Quarter visible again on the streets where they happened.

Visit the official project website

THE PROJECT

The city becomes a living layer of memory.

The experience begins in the vibrant Budapest of the early 1900s and leads participants through turning points in the city's history to the liberation of the ghetto in 1945. Characters, digital reconstructions and stories grounded in documented events and survivor testimony appear at their original locations.

The multidisciplinary research brings together history, visual research, anthropology, psychology, film and theatre. AR/XR is not used as spectacle, but as a way to reconnect memory with place and let participants encounter history through movement, perspective and choice.

VISUAL POSITIONING

Millimetre-level alignment in the streets of central Pest.

The experience uses a Visual Positioning System (VPS) to understand the device's position and orientation from the live camera image and mapped urban landmarks. This allows reconstructed storefronts, people, boundaries and narrative events to remain anchored to the physical city with millimetre-level visual alignment.

01 · CAMERA
Live streetscape
The device observes façades, corners, signs and stable architectural details.
02 · MATCH
Visual landmarks
The camera image is compared with a prepared spatial map of the location.
03 · POSE
Position and orientation
The system resolves where the participant is standing and which direction the device is facing.
04 · ALIGN
Historical AR layer
Digital reconstructions are placed over their real-world locations with precise, persistent registration.

PROTOTYPE STORIES

Three perspectives on life in and around the Budapest ghetto.

Each prototype is based on real events, recollections and documents, while testing the emotional and ethical possibilities of historical AR.

Béla Vanczák's Mission

Disguised as a member of the Arrow Cross, locksmith Béla Vanczák attempts to enter the ghetto and rescue his parents-in-law — a story of courage and civil resistance.

The Gingerbread

A young person shopping near the ghetto wall must decide whether to help a boy wearing a yellow star or walk away from the danger.

Two Loaves

In January 1945, the protagonist carries two loaves through a starving ghetto and faces the tragic logic of a choiceless choice.

RESEARCH & RESPONSIBILITY

Technology in service of critical remembrance.

Researchers and international experts guide how testimony, archival material and interaction are translated into an experience. The goal is not to gamify trauma, but to create a sensitive, participatory and critically engaged form of digital remembrance.

CURRENT STATUS

Prototype research now; a public experience planned for 2027.

Three prototype narratives are being tested to understand emotional impact, spatial interaction and the ethical questions raised by making the past experientially present. The findings will shape the final location-based experience.