Only long-time residents will know how picturesque and serene Kolkata was during the 19th century. During that time, the City of Joy was one of the most artistically and culturally affluent places in India.
However, increasing population and pollution, over the course of time, has fatally tainted the city’s rich heritage in more ways than one. Fortunately for history and art enthusiasts, a new app has been devised that brings back the magnificence of 19th century Kolkata through a unique mobile application.
The ‘Timescape Kolkata’ app, which is a collective effort of Jadavpur University, the University of Liverpool, and British council, offers you with old images and videos of significant locations in the city.
The app comes pre-installed with 100 famous geographical points of interest such as the Victoria Memorial, National Library along with numerous other historic images across the city. This app flawlessly combines virtual reality, audio, and video, which help users visualize them in a 19th century environment.
A lot of the images used by the app are taken from the British Library’s picture archive; some of the pictures even date back to the 1800s.
Curator of the app Jayanta Sengupta elucidated that the app uses a smartphone camera and GPS: if you point your smartphone in particular location, the app quickly identifies the location’s through GPS co-ordinates and generates a 19th century image of the same scene.
Additionally, the Victoria Memorial Hall has also provided images and other archived data to build an interactive map of Kolkata. So next time you visit the city, don’t forget to install this app before you start sightseeing.
