Architizer News
Google Art Project Launches
February 1, 2011
A year ago, I heard a Google Earth developer set forth their basic mission in a lecture here in New York: to embed their online version of the physical world with just as much information as the real thing. And then, to surpass it. So that, eventually, Google Earth will contain not just an analogue to reality, but something even more dynamic, containing both static and user-generated content based on location.
Today Google made a major step in that direction: they launched Google Art Project. The program allows you to navigate through the best museums in the world at your own leisure in a format analogous to Streetview.
Click through to read about the launch.
The “Streetview” portion of the application is arguably less powerful than the “slider” function – which allows you to view some of the Museums’ collections in a high-res slideshow. This is really almost too good to be true, as anyone who’s spent hours trying to find a crisp digital image of a work seen at a museum can attest. Also, you can “Create an Artwork Collection” by bookmarking images and returning to them in your own slideshow.
Google Art Project: Behind the Scenes.
Participating Institutions:
- Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin – Germany
- Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian, Washington DC – USA
- The Frick Collection, NYC – USA
- Gemäldegalerie, Berlin – Germany
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC – USA
- MoMA, The Museum of Modern Art, NYC – USA
- Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid – Spain
- Museo Thyssen – Bornemisza, Madrid – Spain
- Museum Kampa, Prague – Czech Republic
- National Gallery, London – UK
- Palace of Versailles – France
- Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam – The Netherlands
- The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg – Russia
- State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow – Russia
- Tate Britain, London – UK
- Uffizi Gallery, Florence – Italy
- Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam – The Netherlands







