News

2023/08/24

Digital Viewer of the Glass Photographic Plates of the Murals in the Kondo Hall of Horyuji Temple is displayed on 8K large high-definition monitors at the Tokyo National Museum

The Tokyo National Museum's exhibition room "Digital Horyuji Treasure Museum" has been displaying the digital viewer of the Glass Photographic Plates of the Murals in the Kondo Hall of Horyuji Temple developed by the National Institute of Informatics Takano Laboratory and others since August 1st this year.

The Horyuji Temple Kondo wall paintings were burned down in a fire in 1949. 363 glass plates of photographs taken by the art printing company Benrido in 1935 before the fire still exist and are designated as important cultural properties of Japan.
The Digital Viewer of the Glass Photographic Plates of the Murals in the Kondo Hall of Horyuji Temple was developed by Horyu-ji Temple, Nara National Museum and Takano laboratory at NII.
The development team developed custom high-resolution scanning system and digitalized the existing glass plates and released its viewer online.

At the Tokyo National Museum exhibition room, you can watch its delicate images on large 8K 70-inch displays. This exhibition will be held until January 28th, 2024.Please come and see it when you are nearby.

About the Digital Gallery of Hōryūji Treasures,

In The Digital Gallery of Hōryūji Treasures, visitors can examine and interact with digital reproductions of historic objects from the temple that cannot be kept on permanent exhibit.
This exhibion is being held at the Tokyo National Museum/Horyuji Treasure Museum's second floor experience exhibition space from January 31, 2023 to January 28, 2024.

Please refer to the related links below for detailed information such as admission fees and closing days.

Links

• The Digital Gallery of Hōryūji Treasures - The National Center for the Promotion of Cultural Properties
• The Gallery of Horyuji Treasures - Tokyo National Museum
• Digital Viewer of the digital images of the glass photographic plates of the murals at the Kondō, or the Golden Hall, of Hōryūji Temple in Nara
• Akihiko Takano（Emeritus professor at NII） - researchmap
• Takeshi Abekawa（Former Associate Professor of the Digital Content and Media Sciences Research Division at NII） - researchmap