The Typewriter Museum Peter Mitterhofer in Parcines will be our South Tyrolean Pilot Museum

22 September 2020

Typewriter Museum Peter Mitterhofer

The Alpine area is rich in small thematic museums which tell the history, culture and ancient crafts of each territory. These are often marginal spots on tourist itineraries, with few visitors due to both their specificity and the difficulty of reaching them, given their geographical positioning.

The SMART project will upgrade four such smaller museums with innovative technologies (Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence, Webapp, Virtual Tour, Design for all), preserving the historical and cultural heritage of local communities and offer tourists new opportunities to discover and experience the Alpine area.

The consortium has committed itself to determining a pilot location in South Tyrol that will carry out at least one project-specific measure in accordance with the approved project with its own resources. In this regard, we have now found a great partner for the SMART project in the Peter Mitterhofer Typewriter Museum in Parcines: the museum is located in the middle of the historic village center of Parcines. It was erected by the municipality of Parcines in memory of their greatest son, the typewriter inventor Peter Mitterhofer. With over 2,000 objects, it contains one of the world's largest collections of historical typewriters and is barrier-free accessible for all visitors.

Thanks to the multimodal design, the following planned measures in the museum will be usable for everyone, especially for visitors with disabilities:

  • Barrier-free website www.smart-museums.eu on the project and the VR-tour of the 4 pilot locations, to visit them also from a distance;
  • Interactive Webapp with an element of Augmented Reality;
  • Element in Virtual Reality;
  • Training of the museum staff to use and manage the common website;
  • Standard-compliant adaptation plan for the museum to remove and overcome architectural barriers;

    Common technologies are used to connect the 4 pilot sites in a common web platform for a uniform virtual museum tour, which is open to further expansion. In cooperation with the Typewriter Museum Peter Mitterhofer in Parcines, we have already started to work out the implementation concept in South Tyrol. The measures are to be implemented in the coming year 2021.

    Financed by the European Regional Development Fund and Interreg Italy-Austria V-A 2014-2020